


Drown

by what_a_dork_fish



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Angst, I tried really hard and I'm sorry if I got it all wrong, PTSD Eggsy, UA (Universe Alterations), sad things
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-28
Updated: 2016-05-18
Packaged: 2018-06-05 02:32:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 25,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6685702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/what_a_dork_fish/pseuds/what_a_dork_fish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This has literally been stuck in my head for over a year and it needs to come o u t so here y'all go, have some Sad Egg.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Days

_“Let go, Eggsy.”_

_“No!” There are tears mixing with sea water on his face, blurring his vision more than the rain. He dares not let go of the raft—or Sarah, whose face holds a calm he won’t accept. “Sarah, please—“_

_She gives that soft smile that used to make everything better, and says calmly, “Eggsy, you have to let go. They can’t take me as well as you.”_

_“She’s right!” Barry shouts over the storm. He’s in the raft, has hold of Eggsy’s shoulders; there are already almost too many of them, all the surviving recruits, shivering and terrified. But Eggsy’s hand is frozen around Sarah’s arm, and he refuses to let go. She’s bleeding out, he can see the dark stain in the water, even in the darkness of the storm. “C’mon, Eggsy!” Barry bellows, “Get in the damn raft!”_

_“No!” Eggsy tries to pull Sarah closer to him, but he’s shivering, can’t move; the water is freezing, he can’t feel his hands and feet. Sarah tries to pry him off, and so does Barry—“You promised you’d come back!”_

_“Please, Eggsy, just let—“_

“—go.”

He wakes with tear-gummed eyes, numb hands clenched tight on the sheets, soaked with sweat. He’d woken himself whispering Sarah’s last words. The same way he’s woken every other night since he returned.

He raises his left hand and stares at the spot where his pinky used to be. He never sleeps without his nightlight, so he can see it easily. Nights like these, he can still feel it.

Mum was right. He should’ve quit earlier.

~~~\0/~~~

“Did you wake up again last night?”

Eggsy nods and settles his cap on his head. There’s a slight scar that curves over his ear, just high enough to be hidden completely when he puts on his hat. That is good. He hates that scar and what it represents.

“I’m sorry, wee,” mum says, like she always does. She can’t hug him because she’s busy changing Daisy’s diaper.

“It’s alright,” Eggsy replies, like he always does. “See you later.”

He goes out job-hunting, like he has every day since he came back. It never goes well. Managers see his sullen face and immediately write him off. Employees are intimidated by him. Customers avoid him. He could be a bouncer at the local nightclub, but he doesn’t feel up to it.

He doesn’t know what’s so wrong about his appearance. He dresses normally, he talks just like his friends, he’s less prone to outbursts—no one knows about the outbursts except mum, Jamal, and Ryan, though. There’s no one else to tell. There might be, if someone would just _talk_ to him once in a while.

But no one wants to talk to the kid who won’t talk first; the one who has panic attacks out of nowhere and flinches when he hears the name “Sarah”. The kid who drinks too much and walks everywhere because riding gives him the shakes.

He can’t even take showers anymore, for fuck’s sake.

It’s only been a few weeks. He should be allowed to be afraid and hurting. But Dean won’t let him have medicine or see a doctor, and the only other option Eggsy can think of is to spend the day prowling London, hiding in shops when it rains until he’s chased out by nervous employees. All the police know him now, and have pieced together his story, and they respect that. It doesn’t mean they forgive him for dealing cannabis and other drugs for Dean’s gang when he’s feeling brave, or for shoplifting pain medication for mum and cough syrup for Daisy. They’ve only caught him shoplifting once, though; he’s done it multiple times and not been caught. No one’s ever caught him for picking pockets, either.

Today, though, he is intensifying his search for a job. Today is a good day. He can feel that in his bones. Today he will be able to do whatever he sets his mind to, and he will do it now.

~~~\0/~~~

Today was not a good day.

He hides under his bed, stifling sobs in the carpet. It had started raining at noon, and he couldn’t stop the breakdown. He’d had to run home, and now he hides.

It is warm and dry under his bed. There is no risk of losing a finger or toe. The dust is not bad—he cleaned yesterday—but it made him sneeze, when he wriggled into the tight space. Now he is trying not to cry too loudly, because Dean is home, and he does not want Dean to call him names again. “Coward” comes to mind, as does “faker” and “manipulator”. Eggsy squeezes his eyes shut and tries to shut his mental ears to the ringing cathedral bells that are his own thoughts.

He does not hear his bedroom door open. He does not hear the tentative voice say, “Eggsy? Eggsy, love, are you alright?”

“He’s fine,” Dean grunts from the sofa, loud enough to carry. “He’s just being a wimp.”

Wimp. That’s another that Eggsy adds to the growing litany in his head, though he can’t remember where he got it.

Mum kneels beside his hiding place, and reaches under to touch his arm. He starts, bangs his head, wriggles further away. “Babe, it’s stopped raining,” mum tells him gently. “You can come out now.”

“Promise?” It’s almost inaudible; a coward’s whisper, a wimp’s murmur.

“Promise.”

Eggsy hesitates, then quietly scoots towards the light. Mum moves out of the way, and Eggsy crawls free of the sweet embrace of the underside of his bed.

“Come on, babe,” mum murmurs, “Let’s get some lunch in you. You’ll feel better.”

Eggsy decides not to point out that he’d probably throw up anything she feeds him. He’s all tied up in knots inside; but if it’s stopped raining, that’s one less thing to worry about.

Dean sneers, but says nothing. Eggsy ignores him. He is nothing. He is a void sprawled on a sofa. There is only air and animosity. If Eggsy keeps telling himself these things, it will hurt less when Dean talks.

Mum helps Eggsy make a ham sandwich, because his hands are shaking and he can’t remember which condiments go on first. When it’s complete, Eggsy sits at the table to eat, his back to the empty spot that is Dean, and mum sits with him.

“It was the rain, wasn’t it,” mum murmurs, frowning worriedly. Eggsy nods, his mouth full of sandwich. Now that he’s begun to eat, he realizes how hungry he is. He didn’t eat breakfast—as usual. “Babe, we need to get you to see a specialist—“

“Why?” The void-that-is-Dean interrupts sharply. “It’s just jitters. Every vet gets them. He’ll be fine in a week.”

“You’ve been saying that for at least a month,” mum finally snaps back, driven to exasperation. “This is more than just ‘jitters’.”

Eggsy stoically and steadily munches his way through his sandwich. If the rain is done, he must continue his search. He doesn’t want to—the thought makes him feel ill—but he must. Today is a good day. If he keeps telling himself that, it will become true. Today is a good day.

Dean is watching some cop show on television. There are sirens. Eggsy closes his eyes tightly and forces away the panic. Later, he promises it. Later.

He is done eating. He stands and puts his dishes in the sink. Dean and mum are fighting again, raising their voices; Daisy begins to cry. Eggsy goes to her and picks her up out of her cot, settling her in his arms and going quietly to his room. He daren’t close the door, but it is safer in here. This is his sanctum, his safe place, his sacred spot. Daisy is safe with him in here.

He rocks his baby sister gently as raised voices become a true shouting match. Fists will not fly. Dean does not hit women. But it is certain he will hit Eggsy the next time he catches him alone. And Eggsy will probably deserve it.

He rocks his sister in silence and lets the tears crawl down his cheeks.

~~~\0/~~~

It is on a bad day that Eggsy makes a choice.

Eggsy is sitting on his bed, contemplating the medal. The medal is his focus object. His fingers—nine in total—know every nick and flattened edge, every curve and dip, every engraved number. The enamel does not chip; the metal warms quickly in his hands. He loves his medal.

“Eggsy?”

The medal is the only memento of his father either he or his mother have. His father, the hero. Eggsy wanted to be a hero like him, but… no don’t think of it.

“Eggsy, come here!”

A distraction. Good. Eggsy tucks the medal under his shirt again and stands, taking a second to make sure his legs will hold him, then walks over and opens his door, leaning in the doorway.

“Yeah?”

“Got any rizlas, babe?”

“No.”

“Do your mum a favor, go down to the shop and get some,” the void orders.

“Get ‘em yourself,” Eggsy replies automatically.

“Wee, what’ve I said about talkin’ to Dean like that?” mum admonishes tiredly.

Oh, yes. The void has a name. Eggsy forgot. There’s a second void in the armchair. “Three’s a crowd, innit? Why don’t Dean’s Poodle go?”

The void mum calls Dean takes out some money. “Tell you what. Go down to the shops, get your mum some rizla, get yourself some sweets. And while you’re gone, we’ll show your mother if we can be good company.”

Eggsy tenses, pride injured, protective instincts roused—but there is nothing he can do. There never is. So he takes the money, shoves it in his pocket, and checks on Daisy. She’s miserable, about to cry; Eggsy murmurs something to her, he can’t remember what, and gives her back… her dummy, yes, that’s the word.

He knows it’s bad when he can’t remember speaking; but it’s worse when he can’t remember words. But he smiles and strokes Daisy’s cheek gently, then leaves the flat.

It’s about to rain. He sways, braces himself against the wall, breathing shallowly and quickly. No—it’s not raining yet. He can do this. He clutches his medal through his shirt, and walks quickly to the stairs.

The shop is just about to close. He pays for the rizla, but lifts a pack of gum; this shop doesn’t have security cameras, and no one else is in.

He finishes his errand, and keeps the change. The void doesn’t demand it back, which is new. So Eggsy heads out again, to meet up with his friends at their usual weekly meeting. This routine is comforting. It is good for him. It doesn’t matter if he drinks four times as much as them; this is a good thing. It is interaction with someone other than those who bleed toxicity.

The rain does not come. The air is simply damp. Eggsy can deal with that. He doesn’t even have to hold his medal at all on his way to the pub.

Jamal and Ryan are already there. They can see right away that it’s a bad night; but they act no differently, greeting him cheerfully, ignoring the way he clutches the edge of the table as he sits very carefully. Their conversation begins innocently enough; complaints about the weather (Eggsy never told them about rain), talk about girls (Eggsy’s not interested), conversation regarding the latest of Ryan’s dealers to be put in jail (slightly concerning, but not alarming).

Then they get to family. Ryan complains, Jamal bemoans, and Eggsy—Eggsy doesn’t know what to say. He can’t refer to the void as “the void”, that would just be confusing. But he can’t bring himself to say his name. It’s not that his name will trigger anything; it’s just that his name means nothing, _is_ nothing, as he himself is nothing. Eggsy has confused himself again. This is upsetting.

“So what’s up with your side?” Ryan asks. That’s their private joke; that they’re brothers, so their families are all related as well. Except the void. He doesn’t count and never will.

“Nothing much,” Eggsy answered, quite normally, except his eyes are jumping everywhere, marking the exits, the potential threat in the booth at the back, the space he’d need if he were attacked from behind or the side. “Dean’s sister had twins and named them after me and mum. They had another shouting match a few days ago.”

Slowly, piece by piece, Jamal and Ryan extract the week’s horrors, which include the void’s slapping Eggsy for “backtalk” (all he’d done was stick up for mum) and the way the void mistreated his mother; putdowns, insults, guilting, and planting seeds of doubt. It infuriates Eggsy just thinking about it. His hands clench in his pockets. He wonders what his face is like.

“If Dean treats your mum so bad, why don’t she leave him?” Ryan ponders, not noticing how tense Eggsy is.

“Low self-esteem, that’s her problem,” Jamal comments wisely. Eggsy resists the temptation to explain, yet again, how, yes, emotional abuse does tend to result in the abused person having low self-esteem.

“Fuck off, why would she had low self-esteem, Eggsy’s mum’s well fit!” Ryan laughed.

Eggsy feels a flash of white-hot rage, but shoves it away before it can do more than leave a trace of bile in the back of his throat. “One of these days, I’m gonna smash his face in,” he vows, very quietly, staring at nothing.

His friends glance at each other uneasily before Jamal says, “Are you mental, cuz? He’d just get that lot to do you,” he pointed to the threat, “And pretend he knew nothin’—“

Ryan smacks him and he shuts up, all three young men studying their glasses.

“Oi!” Rott snaps, “You think you can talk shit about us an’ we won’t do nuthin’ just ‘cause our guvnor’s bangin’ Eggsy’s mum?!”

Ryan and Jamal look properly cowed. Eggsy just looks at Rottweiler. Just looks. And wonders how hard he’d have to smash his skull against the edge of the table to break it.

The dogs stand and prowl over. Jamal and Ryan sink in their seats; Eggsy keeps his eyes on the threat, all of them.

“You boys have outstayed your welcome,” Rott states, leaning on the table with both hands. He makes a little shooing motion. “Leave.”

Today is a bad day. But there are ways to make bad days into good ones.

Eggsy stands suddenly, just a little closer to Rott than necessary. “Sorry about that, bruv,” he says, ever so sweetly, and pats Rott’s arm lightly. Then he leaves with his friends.

“Yeah, well fuckin’ worth it was,” Ryan mutters as the step into the cold. Eggsy shivers, his heart pounding with an exhilarated fear as he says, “It’s freezing.”

He holds up a ring of keys.

“Why’re we walking?”

Both stare at him like he’s gone mental. “You jacked his fuckin’ car keys, bruv?!” Jamal demands, pointing to the pub.

“Yeah, and now we’re gonna nick his car.”

“Oh, shit!”

~~~\0/~~~

Today is a bad day.

“Eggsy, there is no such thing as honor among thieves.”

Eggsy crosses his arms over his chest and slides down further in his seat. All this because he couldn’t run over a stupid fox.

“Either you give me the names of the boys you were with, or you go down.” The officer attempting to stare him down is not particularly threatening. Eggsy has survived worse. “Up to you,” the officer says.

A flash of a number. Eggsy looks up, puts on his best stubborn expression. “Wanna exercise my right to a phone call,” he says flatly.

The officer sighs quietly and stands, taking the paper with him. “I hope it’s to your mum,” he comments, casual, conversational. “To tell her you’ll be eighteen months late to your dinner.”

Eggsy stares at the far wall as the officer leaves. There’s a mirror on that wall. He hates his reflection. He hates it with a fury that startles many. But it’s not his reflection he’s seeing. He sees a number.

Without looking, he grabs the phone and dials the number his nine fingers know so well.

~~~\0/~~~

Harry Hart is drinking again.

Yesterday was a bad day. So this morning his breakfast is whiskey. He is _not_ an alcoholic, he is a binge-drinker. That is completely different. He contemplates the list of young men and women on his screen, rejecting them one by one as he sips his whiskey. None are as perfect as his last candidate had been.

Lee. He sets down his drink and pulls up the files he still keeps of Lee’s family. Michelle, he hasn’t updated since she had her baby; Eggsy, he hasn’t updated since the incident. Perhaps it’s time for a new entry.

Michelle is easy enough; everything she’s ever done is public record, and there isn’t much. Eggsy is harder. He has multiple charges of petty crime, some suspected drug abuse, and no record of a job, or any work of any kind. It’s only been a month and a half, though. He’s still recuperating.

Except he isn’t. Harry frowns and goes back through the data. Eggsy is not recuperating, at least, not correctly. The army doctors had tried to refer him to a psychiatrist, but he hadn’t gone. He hasn’t gone to any doctors at all since he came home. He’s not even on medication, for physical pain or mental health. Perhaps that’s where the drug abuse comes into play.

Why isn’t he seeking help? He is not a stupid boy; why would he suffer like this?

Why is Harry considering him?

His glasses beep. With a sigh, Harry closes the windows on his laptop and puts on the spectacles. “Yes?”

“Call for you, sir,” answers the woman on the other end. “Oxfords, not brogues.”

Harry is on his feet and pulling on his jacket immediately. “Thank you, Amelia. Would you please tell Merlin I have an appointment, and will not be available for the next, mmm, five hours.”

“Yessir.”


	2. Evening

Eggsy is holding his head in his hands, waiting to be taken back to a proper cell. The one he spent the night in had been uncomfortable, but bearable.

This is exactly what Dr. Wallace had said would happen. She’d warned him to be careful or he’d end up doing something stupid and landing in jail. It wasn’t just the trauma, she’d said; it was the shift from military to civilian life, and falling back into old behavioral patterns. She had not been happy when he’d returned her call, saying that he could not go to the psychiatrist for undisclosed reasons.

He wonders bitterly if Dean is happy now.

He’s tracing the scar above his ear with the three fingers of his left hand when the door opens, and a different police officer says roughly, “You’re free to go, Eggsy.”

Eggsy just stares at him for a moment. “I thought I was supposed to go to—“ he begins, but the officer cuts him off.

“We did too. Word from above said to let you go. So go.”

Eggsy stands, slowly… then strides as fast as he dares to and out the door, and down the hall, looking over his shoulder once to confirm that he is not being followed. The officer just nods to him. Eggsy nods back and passes into the lobby. He still feels strange, like he shouldn’t be out here. Word from above? Did that mean the charges had been dropped? Who was “above” that gave a shit about any of the petty crooks of the world?

He sees the man who’d questioned him walk through the door. He gives Eggsy a disgusted, disappointed look, then goes about his business. Eggsy leaves, mystified and even more nervous than ever. At least it’s not raining.

“Eggsy. Would you like a lift home?”

Eggsy snaps around at the sound of his own name, and stares at the older man who’d addressed him. He’s dressed nicely, posed casually while still on the alert, dark glasses, calm, stern face; he feels familiar. “Who’re you?” Eggsy demands.

“The man who got you released,” the man says, tilting his head a little.

“That ain’t an answer.” Why would an obvious snob do anything for Eggsy? Why is he familiar?

“A little gratitude would be nice,” the man replies, a bit sharply; but he straightens a little, and answers. “My name is Harry Hart, and I’m the one who gave you that medal.”

_Shiny black shoes, golden ring, striped suit, “Take care of your mum.”_

“Your father saved my life.”

Eggsy swallows hard. Of course. Of course it’d be that. Dad was a hero, after all.

“The offer stands.”

Offer? Oh, yes. “No,” Eggsy answers firmly, “I’ll walk. It ain’t that far.”

Harry Hart raises an eyebrow. “What if it rains?” he inquires casually, and quietly.

He’s got Eggsy there. He glances anxiously at the sky; but it’s a beautiful day for this time of year. No rain clouds in sight. And the weather forecast had predicted that today would be dry. Still, you can never be too careful.

But he can’t just arrive home in some rich man’s car. What would everyone think? No, if he is going to be driven anywhere, let it be where a rich man might visit anyway. Not that there are very many of such places around his neighborhood… Although, occasionally, you get nicely-dressed folk at the Black Prince. They never stay long, and usually they are much younger, but Eggsy can explain to Roger the publican that he’d been bailed by a friend of his father’s, and Roger will actually believe him. He believes most of what Eggsy says, because Eggsy has never given him reason to doubt his honesty.

His mind is made up. “Fine. Can you drive me to the Black Prince? First round on me,” he adds spontaneously.

Harry Hart nods. “That is fair,” he cedes, and walks down the steps to the one Eggsy stands on. “Refresh my memory. Where is it again?”

“You’ve been there before?” Eggsy asks instead, surprised.

Harry Hart gives the thinnest of smiles. “Only once,” he answers softly. “Now, where is it?”

~~~\0/~~~

Harry is disappointed by what he sees. This boy is so broken. His face is hard and closed, except when he’s afraid; and when he’s afraid, there is nothing but fear. His eyes have permanent dark circles, there are deep lines on his forehead and around his mouth, his entire stance is always tight and ready to… fight? Flee? He’s got a dangerous air, but the danger of a cornered wild animal, not that of a predator. He looks underfed, or maybe that’s the baggy clothes. He just is not ready for this.

And from what his files say, he’s not getting any kind of help. Not even a therapist. That is not unusual; but for some reason, it makes Harry very annoyed.

Oh no. He’s already feeling like an angry parent whose child is doing poorly in school. That means he’s decided to take an interest in him. Oh well. It’s been a while since he’s had a ‘project’ like this.

They are silent in the back of the taxi. Eggsy is cowed by the interior, though his expression remains stony. It’s in the way he slouches in his seat, huddled in on himself, arms crossed tightly across his chest. Harry contemplates the little ball of fear and rage beside him without actually looking at him.

Suddenly, Eggsy blurts, “How can you afford this kind of thing?”

“My clients pay me well.”

“Clients?”

“I’m a tailor. Kingsman tailors, Savile Row.”

They fall silent again.

They reach the pub in record time. The taxi does not wait around, zooming away as fast as possible. Eggsy glances at the sky, reflexively perhaps. Harry shouldn’t have used the threat of rain. He knew it was too far as soon as he’d said it. But the clouds do not form, the water does not fall. Eggsy leads the way inside.

It hasn’t changed in seventeen and a half years. Harry has only been here once, but he’s been to a million just like it; the darkened wood, stained by beer, the scraped floor, the bar, the smell of old vomit and stale ale. It’s a good place, if you like that sort of thing, or if there’s nothing else available. He walks right over to the booth where he spoke to Lee, the one across from the door, letting Eggsy buy the first round. He is sure Eggsy will choose rightly.

And he does; a nice dark Guinness, just what Harry would have chosen. He hasn’t had beer in a long time. He takes a drink as Eggsy does, and relishes it for a moment. Then he realizes that Eggsy has not put down his glass after the first drink; he’s fairly chugging the pint, and when he’s drunk half he sets it down with a long gasp, and wipes foam off his lip with his sleeve.

“You could’ve choked,” Harry comments lightly.

“I don’t choke,” Eggsy replies flatly, then turns very red, though his expression remains sullen. Quickly he asks, “So before you was a tailor, was you in the army too? Like an officer?”

“Not quite.”

“Where was you posted?”

“Sorry, Eggsy, classified.”

Now the sullenness makes way for a touch of pride. “But my dad saved your life, eh?” he says smugly.

Harry doesn’t want to burst his bubble, but he has to say it. But let’s be gentle about it. “The day your father died, I missed something. And if it wasn’t for his courage, my mistake could have cost the lives of every man present. So I owe him.” Eggsy’s pride in his hero father grows with every word, Harry can see that. And he feels his own sadness, at the loss of another brilliant human being. “Your father was a brave man. A good man. And having read your files I think he’d be bitterly disappointed in the choices you’ve made.”

The pride vanishes, the smugness disappears, the empty, closed stone descends, and this time there is hate in the stare Eggsy fixes on Harry. He says nothing. Harry is vaguely surprised. He’d expected some kind of outburst, something other than cold loathing. But he is not put off.

“Huge IQ, great performance at primary school; then it all went tits up. Drugs, petty crime, never had a job…”

“I had a job,” Eggsy interrupts tightly. “An’ I’ve been lookin’ since I left. You think there’s a lot of jobs down here, do ya?”

“Doesn’t explain why you gave up your hobbies. First prize regional under tens gymnastics two years in a row; your coach had you down as Olympic team material.”

“Yeah, well, when you grow up ‘round someone like my stepdad, you pick up new hobbies pretty quick.”

“Ah, of course, always someone else’s fault.”

Finally a flash of something, of some kind of pain that deepens the lines on his face, before he is back to stone. Harry decides to push just a little further.

“Who’s to blame for you quitting the Marines?” he asks.

That does it. Eggsy bolts, but Harry has already stuck out his umbrella to trip him, and before he can rise to his feet again, Harry is up and has a hold of the back of his jacket. With no effort at all, Harry drags Eggsy upright and shoves him back into his seat, before also sitting back down with considerably more decorum.

“I see,” he says.

“No,” Eggsy whispers, his eyes flicking everywhere but Harry, “No, you don’t. Nobody does. Fuck, why does every keep saying that?!” He jerks around to face Harry, knocking over his glass of beer with his elbow, the stone shattered to show the snarling wild cat beneath. “Why does everyone keep saying they see, they understand?! _No one_ understands us! Nobody who matters! And you—you fucking snobs, you know least of all! Judgin’ us from your ivory towers, no thought about _why_ —“

“The _fuck_ you doin’ here, you takin’ the piss?!”

Eggsy shuts up immediately. Harry turns calmly, to see a group of five men, perhaps ten years older than Eggsy, all looking savage and confrontational. Well. This will be interesting.

“We better go,” Eggsy mutters, watching the approaching group warily.

“Nonsense, we haven’t finished our drinks,” Harry replies, picking up his glass and sipping calmly. It’s too late now, they’re blocked in. And all of the gang’s attention, and animosity, is fixed on Eggsy.

“After you nicked his car, Dean says you’re fair game,” the shortest man growls, “An’ he don’t give a shit what your mum says.”

Fair game, is he? This poor little boy is ‘fair game’ to a bunch of thugs? Harry finds this highly annoying. “Um, listen, boys…”

Slowly, they all turn to him.

“I’ve had a rather emotional day,” he tells them, “So whatever your beef with Eggsy is, and I’m sure it’s well founded—“ he knows for a fact it isn’t, “—I’d appreciate it enormously if you could just leave us in peace. At least until I finish this lovely pint of Guinness.”

There is a space of awkward silence.

“You should get outta the way, grandad, or you’ll get ‘urt and all,” the tallest of the group threatens.

“He ain’t jokin’, you should go,” Eggsy agrees in a low voice.

Harry doesn’t want to. His first instinct is to teach these rude little boys a lesson. But Eggsy said to go; and he’d rather not witness such a shameful thing as five thugs beating on a helpless youngster. So Harry stands, making sure to grab his umbrella, and walks away from what will shortly become the scene of—

“If you’re lookin’ for another rentboy, they’re on the corner a’ Smith Street,” the short thug tells Harry’s back.

And now they have awoken the dragon.

~~~\0/~~~

Today is a bad day.

It’s not that he isn’t grateful and amazed—watching Harry work is fiercely satisfying—and it isn’t that he’s not relieved that Harry didn’t shoot him with whatever he’d gotten Roger with. But the thought of what will await him when he comes home makes him sick to his stomach.

He walks fast for the first block, then more slowly, and steadily slackens his pace until he’s plodding along like the weight of the world is on his shoulders. It certainly feels like it. His imagination is not fertile, but it’s strong, and what few scenarios he can come up with are very, very strong indeed. He’s dead. He’s so dead. But—but maybe Dean hasn’t heard yet. Maybe… no, of course he’s heard, that’s just how things work.

Eggsy is close to home now. He swallows hard, but puts back his shoulders, raises his chin, and marches down the block and up the steps. Is he his father’s son or isn’t he?

But by the time he reaches the top floor, he’s doubtful again, and his shoulders are bowed and his head is low. Surely Dean will be displeased. And Eggsy has seen what happens when he’s displeased.

He opens the door, tosses his keys on the table, and suddenly mum is rushing towards him, naked fear on her face, “Eggsy, please go, because he’s gonna—“

A fist slams into Eggsy’s jaw, and before he can recover, he is pinned to the fridge and Dean is shouting at him.

“I wanna know the name of the geezer you was wiv!”

“I wasn’t with nobody—I dunno what you’re on about—I dunno what the FUCK you’re one about!”

“Tell me his name! Or I swear, I’ll rip your head off!”

“Just tell him, Eggsy—“ Mum begs, and shrieks as Dean grabs the knife.

No.

You do _not_ threaten mum and get away with it.

Eggsy brings up his arm fast and breaks Dean’s hold on him, grabs the wrist of the hand with the knife in it and twists, hard, backhands Dean so hard he reels, and shoves him back and into the counter. Before Dean can quite realize what’s going on, Eggsy kicks him in the jewels as hard as he can, sending the larger man to his knees, wheezing.

Eggsy snatches the knife off the floor and throws it in the sink. Now what? Keep going? Make Dean pay with all the blood in his body? Or run, run as fast and as far as he can?

He looks at mum. She’s backed against the door to the bathroom, her hands over her mouth, staring in utter horror at the scene before her.

In his ear, Eggsy suddenly hears Harry Hart’s voice. “Eggsy. Leave him. Meet me at the tailor’s shop I told you about.”

Orders from an officer, he cannot disobey. So he spits on Dean, says, “Love you, mum,” and makes a run for it.

Of course the gang is waiting. It seems they’ve recovered from their injuries. Eggsy turns sharply and runs for the route he planned out years ago, the unconventional one down the concrete walls that none of Dean’s gang can follow. He reaches the ground before they can do more than rush to the balcony.

“Oi! I’ll have you, son!”

Eggsy just gives them the V and walks away.

Today is a good day.

~~~\0/~~~

Harry has decided.

He makes it to Kingsman long before Eggsy. While he pours himself a whiskey and waits, he contemplates his decision.

Eggsy had not been promising. There are dozens of other, more stable candidates he could have chosen. And Eggsy had quit the Marines… why? Because his friend had drowned? That is hardly the behavior of a man hardy enough to last in the spy world. Eggsy won’t last a week of Kingsman training.

But on the other hand, perhaps the loss of a dear friend has hardened him, and that is why he is all cracked to splinters. A little concrete, a little discreet sculpting, and voila, a proper agent.

What cracked him, though? Would it happen again? Oh, probably. But that didn’t mean—

Eggsy walks through the door, looking grim and uncertain. He pauses, and looks at Harry, who looks back.

“I never met a tailor before,” Eggsy begins, “But I know you ain’t one.”

Harry finishes his whiskey. “Come with me,” he orders.

Eggsy follows carefully. Harry walks quickly, because he knows for sure that they’re going to be late; he just doesn’t know by how much. When he enters the fitting room and turns, Eggsy is on the threshold, peering in warily. He moves very quietly. A good sign.

“Come on in,” Harry urges gently. Eggsy throws him a wary look, but steps inside and faces the mirror.

“What do you see?” Harry asks.

“Someone who wants to know what the _fuck_ is goin’ on,” Eggsy replies frankly. Harry almost smiles. Almost.

“I see a young man with potential. A young man who is loyal, who can do as he’s asked, and wants to do something good with his life.”

Again, that glimpse of pain, that agony that carved lines into his too-young face for half a moment before he puts on a brave face again. Harry decides that his decision had been a good one. It will be healthy for Eggsy, to have something to do. Something not running drugs or being turned away again and again for being who he is.

“Have you seen the film “Trading Places”?” Harry askes.

“No,” Eggsy answers after a second’s consideration.

“How about “Nikita”?” Another negative. “Pretty Woman?” A ‘what the fuck’ look. “Alright. My point is, the experiences you’ve had have put you on a certain path, but you needn’t stay on it. If you’re prepared to adapt, and learn, you can transform.”

“Oh, like in My Fair Lady,” Eggsy replies with sudden comprehension, the ghost of a smile drifting across his face. It is a nice expression. Harry catches himself before he begins to dwell.

“Well, you’re full of surprises,” he mutters. Louder, “Yes, like in My Fair Lady. Only in this instance I’m offering you the chance to become a Kingsman.”

“A tailor,” Eggsy says.

“A Kingsman agent,” Harry corrects.

Eggsy hesitates. Harry understands. He’s read the file; Eggsy had first applied to be in MI6, perhaps expecting various Bond-style adventures. But when he’d been turned down, he’d gone to the Marines, and from there…

“Like a spy?” Eggsy asks, with careful doubt.

“Of sorts.”

A scoff, a shake of his head; but Harry has him. He can feel it. Eggsy’s in.

“Interested?” he prods.

“Think I got anything to lose?” Eggsy replies bitterly.

Harry steps past him and presses the mirror.

~~~\0/~~~

Eggsy can’t think of anything to say as they zoom through the underground tunnel. Harry doesn’t seem inclined to speak either. So they sit in rocky silence, Eggsy gripping the arms of his seat tightly, waiting for a jolt or sway; some movement to tell him they are going somewhere. But all there is, is the kind of steady pull of pressure like in a lift, and the sight of streaming rock out the tiny windows.

A jolt or sway would also make him panic. As it is, he can’t take how tiny the cabin is; he can feel himself trembling, on edge, certain that if either of them speak the words are going to fill up the cabin and push out all the air and they’ll both asphyxiate because they were stupid enough to talk. So he keeps his mouth closed, and focuses on the tiny breeze coming from the vent in the ceiling. His left hand is clenched on his medal. He focuses on that.

The shuttle stops with a tiny jolt, barely perceptible—

Eggsy is on his feet immediately, breathing fast, and as soon as the crack between the doors is wide enough he throws himself at it; thankfully the doors open just as immediately, and he enters a large concrete box with computer screens and banks, and a huge window. None of these fixtures matter. He is in concrete, he is in an enclosed area whose walls will not buckle—he is safe.

He takes a deep, deep breath, and lets it out slowly. The air tastes like metal and rock. The metal part frightens him; the rock soothes. Nothing short of an earthquake will penetrate this fastness. And it seems absolutely water-tight.

“Shit, we’re late,” Harry says calmly, as he also steps from the shuttle. He goes immediately to a door to the right; Eggsy follows, with a single glance out the window at what looks like a hangar full of… of…

Too late. They’re in the corridor, which has sides that are too close and a ceiling that is too tall. It’s like being at the bottom of a well—or a trench—

Not that Eggsy had ever been in a trench. But he remembers looking out a window and seeing one; a deep, dark slash in the ocean floor, with fish swimming over it like it wasn’t there.

And then he’d been shouted at to get back to work, and he had done so, because you must obey your commanding officers. But the image has stuck.

Just before he can begin to contemplate it too deeply, they turn a corner, and are faced with a man who looks extremely similar to Eggsy’s most terrifying drill sergeant. He isn’t him, though, because his face is too calm, and his nose is a little smaller, and he has an accent as he greets Harry. “Galahad. Late again, sir.”

Harry looks inscrutable. Then he says to Eggsy, “Good luck.”

“In ye go,” the man orders.

Eggsy nods, lets go of his medal, and steps through the door.

Everyone here is posh. How could he have expected anything else? There are smirks when they see him. He braces himself, slows his pace; it would not do for them to start out thinking he was some skittish pleb, in awe of these great men and women. His face hardens as the smirks widen. His entire body tenses. Now his slow walk becomes a stalk, and the smirks waver—

“Fall in,” snaps the man who had greeted him.

Eggsy immediately steps in line, realizes everyone’s got their hands behind their backs—that’s not proper form, is it?—fixes his positioning. Then he takes a breath and focuses.

“Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Merlin. You are about to embark on what is probably the most dangerous job interview in the world. One of you, and only one of you, will become the next Lancelot.” Merlin picks up a pile of green cloth. “Can anyone tell me what this is?”

Eggsy narrows his eyes at the neatly-folded thing. The fabric looks familiar…

“Body bag, sir.”

_There hadn’t even been a body to bury, only her name and memory—_

“—will write the details of your next of kin on this bag,” Merlin is saying. “This is your acknowledgement of the risks you are about to take, as well as your agreement to strict confidentiality, which, incidentally, if you break, will result in you, and your next of kin, being in that bag.”

WHAT?

No one else seems shaken. No one else seems to realize what that means. No, of course they wouldn’t, snobs never know, if they had learned what Eggsy had learned—

“Understood? Excellent. Fall out.”


	3. Nights

It takes a while to fall asleep.

Eggsy is processing all that has happened. He is calmer, now; these barracks are similar to, yet very different from, those he’d shared in training. It’s… comforting. And while he is surrounded by potential enemies, at least they are the kind of enemies he knows how to deal with. And he has allies; Amelia and Roxy seem like good sorts, even if Roxy is wrong about classic army techniques.

He recalls how he’d looked at her when she’d said that. He’d wanted to tell her she was wrong, that it was completely possible for one of them to die, because hadn’t he seen it, lived it—but that was hardly the right way to gain an ally. So he’d just glanced back at the sneering, gossiping fools and said, “Shame.” His small smile had invited another from her, and she’d given it, along with a tiny, dainty snort of laughter.

Dainty. She doesn’t look dainty. She looks like she’ll break your spine if you call her that. It’s only that she’s short.

Sarah hadn’t been short. She had been six foot and proud. She’d been his first ally, too…

Eventually, he sleeps, and his nightmares crawl forward.

_The sub isn’t supposed to be this big._

_He wanders through a maze of endless corridors, the air cold and metal-tasting. Every door is locked, or blocked by flotsam. He has to clamber over some tangles. This isn’t the sub they trained with. He can hear distant voices; old friends, old enemies. Every time he turns a corner he’s convinced he’ll find them mere feet away. But they’re never there._

_He shivers and hugs himself. It is so cold down here, under the sea. He knows for a fact that they are going down, down, down; deep into one of those trenches he’d feared so much. He can feel the pressure. Any minute now, the walls are going to buckle. Any minute now…_

The sound of water.

Eggsy wakes instantly. He freezes, listening closely. Trickles. Shushing. Gurgles.

He sits bolt upright and slams his light switch. There is water on the floor, rising steadily— _rising around his ankles, his shins, pouring through the walls, his hands not enough to block the deluge—_

With a ragged gasp, he scrambles out of bed, falls in the water— _rising to his waist, he thrashes, tries so hard to reach the exit_ —he fumbles to his feet, shuddering at the cold wet, runs for the door, slips, falls— _water coming too fast, can barely keep his head above_ —fights upright, sees that others are awake, doesn’t care, wades to the door, tries to open it— _all exits blocked and locked, there is nothing but the sea_ —

“NO!” he shouts, voice already hoarse, as the water rises, “Not again, NEVER again, no, no, no—!”

The door won’t open, the pressure’s too great, and they’ve been locked in. The water is around his neck. He turns violently, kicks, reaches the ceiling, taking huge breaths, trying to fill his lungs—

The water closes over his head.

There is no time for thought. He looks around; no other exits, no way to force the door. He looks for his fellows, finds them, hiding behind the toilets—no, they have the shower tubes down—shoved _in_ the toilets?

That won’t save them, nothing will save them, they’re going to die they’re all going to die and when the door is opened it will shatter the illusion of calm that death brings shatter it like glass—

Like glass—

Eggsy is swimming before he realizes what he’s doing. The mirror is inset; maybe there’s a reason. A focus, a goal, barely helps; but he holds his breath tighter and swims, ignoring his fellows, ignoring the cold silk feel, the way water is sneaking into his nose, the pressure of being buried alive in a tomb of liquid.

_There is nothing but the sea._

There is nothing but now.

He grabs the ledge. His lungs are burning. One punch. The water slows his fist. Two punch. He needs to breathe. Three punch. Oh god he needs air.

Four punch.

The glass shatters.

There is no driving force, pushing the water, except its own weight and physical properties. There is a surge, like spitting a mouthful of liquid, that spills out and into another room. Eggsy is flipped up and over, so he skids on his ass while his fellow candidates are hurled past him; automatically he counts them, and sees that one is missing.

Before anyone else can speak, Eggsy says, “Where’s Amelia?”

“She’s there,” says Merlin beside him. Eggsy jerks around to stare—why is Merlin here?—and sees that Merlin is pointing back into the barracks, with a somber expression.

Fear fills him. He scrambles to his feet and stumbles to where the mirror used to be, ignoring the glass that pierces his feet and cuts into his palms as he leans over the ledge. No, no, no—

Amelia lies on the half-wall, unmoving. Eggsy’s breath is coming too fast. He throws one leg over the ledge, his foot splashing in the water in the sink—he has to go to her, maybe she can be saved, please, don’t let this be another Sarah—

A large hand grabs his bicep and holds on tight. “Don’t bother,” Merlin advises coldly.

“I gotta try!” Eggsy tries to yank away, but to no effect. He can barely think through the panic, the need to save her, even as a part of him deep inside is wailing that it’s too late. She’s gone. Just like Sarah.

“There’s no point.” Merlin hauls him back over the ledge, though Eggsy fights every inch. “This is why you must all learn teamwork. Look what happens when you only think of yourselves, of short-term survival instead of long-term. Eggsy, you’d best learn control. You can’t panic every time you touch water.”

Eggsy has no answer to this. His fault. It echoes ‘round and ‘round in his head; his fault, his fault, his fault. If he’d only gotten the door open. If he’d only thought to grab her before swimming away, like a coward, like a selfish coward—

Merlin turns him away from the smashed mirror, towards another door, and gives him a little push. “Get on wi’ ye.”

Must obey. When in doubt, obey the commanding officer. Eggsy firms up his chin, straightens his spine, and exits with the others.

~~~\0/~~~

“What did you mean, “never again”?”

Eggsy picks at his breakfast—standard issue army rations, why should he expect better—and doesn’t answer Roxy. Why should he? It’s his secret to keep.

He’d been hoping it had all been a dream… a horrible nightmare. But no. No, it was real. And everyone keeps sneaking glances at the empty chair between Eggsy and Charlie.

“Alright,” Roxy says, as if Eggsy had actually spoken, and applies herself to her own meal.

The mess hall is exactly the same as the one he remembers. It’s just much smaller, since there’s only one table. Another small, cold, empty piece of comfort. The food is the same, the feel of a new uniform is the same. The atmosphere is different, in that there is a kind of pall over them all. The boys were silent; but with Roxy’s spoken question, they slowly become aware of Eggsy again.

“Hey.” Rufus, sitting across from him, kicks him under the table. “Answer the question.”

Eggsy slams his heel against Rufus’ knee, hard enough to send the other back a few inches. Rufus yelps and clutches the injured joint, then falls over backwards with another, louder yelp and a dull thud.

A ghost of a smile passes over Eggsy’s face.

Merlin arrives just as Rufus is picking himself up. Merlin raises one eyebrow, but just says, “Finish up, candidates. Today, we begin your training.”

Everyone hurries to finish eating. Eggsy lays down his fork, forces himself to finish his cup of tea, and stands up. Merlin eyes him critically, saying nothing. For lack of anywhere better to stand, Eggsy moves to the wall, near the door, and waits with his hands clasped before him, eyes straight ahead. He’s trying not to think. Thinking will lead him to bad places.

“Eggsy.”

He blinks and turns his head. Merlin is holding something in the palm of his hand, something round, with a chain—

“I thought—” Eggsy says, and can’t think of any way to continue. So he takes back his medal, and reattaches it around his neck, and tucks it under his collar. He feels much better with it against his skin. He thought he’d lost it in the—the—flood.

His hands begin to shake. He clasps them tightly again. Roxy is done, as is Charlie; they come to stand beside him. As everyone finishes, they come to stand in a neat line, with Eggsy at the end closest to the door. He wonders at this, since it puts him at the head of the column. Maybe no one notices the symbolism except him. Maybe there is no symbolism here.

They file out of the mess, following Merlin. Eggsy feels eyes on his back and fights the urge to turn and scream at them all to _stop looking at him like that_. He can feel their hatred, their pity, their suspicion; and it makes him walk taller, tenser, angrier. If he could, he’d turn and give them all something to hate him for.

But he can’t. The medal chafing his skin and the shiny bald back of Merlin’s head keep his eyes forward, keep him walking. Keep on walking.

Merlin leads them through a hallway none of the candidates had been brought down. It’s a little wider, a little easier to breathe; Eggsy finds himself taking deep breaths, because this respite won’t last, and he knows it. Then up a narrow, steep little stair, with a metal door that leads to—

—a cellar.

It’s a very large cellar, larger than Eggsy’s mum’s flat, but nonetheless, it is a cellar. Merlin halts, and when the last candidate has passed through the portal, he leads the way up the rickety wooden steps to the door out. Eggsy is still at the head of the column, mystified and uncertain.

They exit into a kitchen just as big as the cellar. Someone makes a hopeful, hastily-muffled noise; Eggsy feels great sympathy. Not that he’s hungry; in fact, just the whiffs of old cooking make his stomach roil. But he understands from before, when he was always hungry.

Merlin does not pause. He simply leads the way straight to the door further into the house. The candidates follow, in their tight little line, afraid to deviate. Eggsy expects a maze, which ties his guts in knots and makes him want to run; but no. The house is cleanly built, spacious even in the halls, with a simple floorplan and very little decoration. There is no smell of use, no air of _people_. Eggsy hates it immediately. He does not belong up here, with fancy woodwork and crimson carpets and discreet lamps. He belongs in the kitchen, the cellar, the bunker beneath the building. He belongs with the cold concrete and perpetual pressure.

But he does not say any of this.

Merlin leads the way up a flight of wide, non-creaking wooden stairs. Then he steps out on to a balcony with two staircases on either side, and gestures for the candidates to go down, on to the lawn. As they descend, Eggsy hears yipping; puzzled, he turns his head, and blinks.

Puppies?

The candidates line up on the lawn in front of the balcony, and the pyramid of puppies. Eggsy looks at them all and frowns. The number of puppies matches the number of candidates. Are they to choose one each? Why? That seems so—

“As some of you may have learned last night,” Merlin calls, regaining Eggsy’s attention, “Teamwork is paramount here at Kingsman. We’re here to enhance your skills, test you to the limit; which is why you’re going to pick a puppy. You will care for it, and when it’s fully trained, so will you be.” He points at the pyramid of cages. “Choose your puppy,” he orders.

Eggsy lets the others rush forward, following with a frown. He had a puppy, once. Then Dean had killed it. He didn’t know how, for certain, but he was pretty sure Dean had thrown it in the Thames. He did that with the cat Eggsy befriended, too. Eggsy is tired of growing attached to things, and then having them stolen by the cold, watery hands of Death.

But… maybe… maybe this one won’t drown. Maybe…

His hands have opened a cage and taken out a puppy. It is very small, and tan, with black muzzle and ears. There’s already a collar around its neck, and a leash hanging on a hook inside the cage. Eggsy clips the latter to the former and returns to his place in line, setting the puppy down gently when he’s in position. Then he notices that everyone else’s puppy is much larger than his.

“A pug,” Roxy notes softly, completely neutral.

“Thought it was a bulldog,” Eggsy mumbles, watching the little critter wander around his toes, sniffing them suspiciously. Then he looks over at Roxy’s. “A poodle?”

“They’re gun dogs,” Roxy replies. “Oldest working breed, easy to train.” She looks down at the pug puppy again. “It’s not going to get much bigger than that, you know.”

Eggsy held back a sigh. “I know.” That would be why no one else wanted it. In a way, he felt a strange kinship with it; small, unwanted, unliked.

Poor lil’ pup.

~~~\0/~~~

Harry has set the business with Professor Arnold aside, despite Arthur’s protests, so he can check on Eggsy.

He chooses dinner time, when the candidates are all worn out and Eggsy’s temper is mostly likely to be frayed to breaking. Harry knows how therapeutic it can be to go off on someone; perhaps Eggsy would benefit from having something to unleash his frustration on. So Harry steps through the doorway into the mess, eyes scanning the tired little boys and girl until he finds Eggsy, who is shoving his food around his plate with his fork, looking faintly nauseous.

Harry clears his throat. Everyone except Eggsy looks at him. Harry’s mouth tightens. He doesn’t like any of the other candidates. He’s read their files. He’s heard tales. Even broken as he is, Eggsy is by far a better man than any of them.

The girl nudges Eggsy with her elbow. He looks up, and for a moment, there’s a flash of—something—in his eyes, before he stands, shoving his plate away, and walks over to stand in front of Harry. There’s something uncertain about him; something off-center. Harry frowns slightly, beckons, and exits the mess, walking down the hall just far enough that no one will overhear them, if they are careful.

Eggsy follows a moment later, carrying a pug puppy in his arms. Protection? Comfort? In any case, the pup looks dozy and smug, probably full of food and treats. Harry knows Merlin; he probably gave each candidate more dog treats than their puppies could possibly eat, as another test. And Eggsy’s heart is still soft enough for him to be generous.

“I wanted to see how you were faring,” Harry explains in a low voice.

“I’m _fine_ ,” Eggsy replies, a little too fiercely. “Why does everyone keep—“ His mouth snaps shut, and he cuddles the pug a little closer.

“Because we’d rather you not snap at the wrong moment,” Harry answers the unfinished question frankly. Then, even more quietly, “Be honest. Did you panic?”

A flicker of shame. “No,” Eggsy answers firmly.

“That’s not what Merlin says.”

“Merlin can fuckin’ shove it!” Eggsy snarls—but quietly.

“Merlin is also the man who controls the testing process,” Harry reminds him, lifting one eyebrow. “He can make you fail, just by pushing you a little too hard. He’s well known for it. Eggsy. Look at me. Did you panic?”

Eggsy scowls fiercely, his eyes bright with—tears? And then the expression falls away, and he looks so miserable and guilty that Harry feels his nonexistent heart twinge in sympathy.

“It’s my fault,” he croaks, so quietly Harry can hardly hear. “I could’ve helped her—I was right there—but I didn’t.”

“It’s not your fault,” Harry murmurs. “You have to remember that. Neither of them were your fault.”

“Liar,” Eggsy whispers, and rubs his eyes on his sleeve with a muttered curse. But apparently that undoes him, because suddenly he stumbles sideways, hits the wall, and slides down, to sit with his knees drawn up and his face hidden behind them. Thankfully, the puppy has escaped before it was crushed, and is whining and pawing at Eggsy’s elbow.

Harry sinks down into a crouch and puts his hand on Eggsy’s shoulder. He says nothing. He just offers his silent presence; and Eggsy seems to accept it.

The soft tramp of boots in the mess. Harry quickly stands, lifting Eggsy easily by one arm—he needs more decent meals—and steps around to stand between Eggsy and the door to the mess, screening Eggsy from view. The younger man rubs his eyes, sniffles once, then has himself under control. Just as he takes a deep, shuddering breath, an obnoxious male voice drawls, “So you’re the one who picked a pleb?”

Harry turns sideways and gazes coolly at the arrogant young prick who has just addressed him so petulantly. “And what of it?” he replies coldly.

The arrogant prick sneers, but seems a little put off. Then he recovers and says, “Thought you should know, he’s failed every test so far.”

“Is that so?” Harry turns to fully face the other. There’s a hard, cold knot in the middle of his chest, and his smile is thin and cold as river-ice. “Tell me, Charles Edward Stephen Hesketh, how many tests did _you_ pass?”

The boy pales. Someone back in the mess gasps; Harry had pitched his voice to carry. He continues, enjoying the way the boy shrinks with every syllable. “I shall tell you myself, Charlie, that you have failed all five tests as well. In fact, you have failed _six_ ; you may have earned points for loo snorkels, but you still failed the test as a whole, while Eggsy, the _pleb_ , saved all of your lives. Did anyone tell you that? That the toilets were rigged? No? An oversight, I presume. To make you feel better. Well, _I_ , Charlie Hesketh, do not believe in leaving out important truths to make someone feel better. So I shall tell you another truth. This “pleb” has been under my protection since he was a toddler. Slander him one more time and you shall be joining Amelia in the morgue. Good day.”

And with that, Harry turns on his heel and strides away, patting Eggsy’s shoulder along the way. There. That should keep the boy quiet for a while. And now, off to catch himself a wayward professor.

~~~\0/~~~

With every word Harry spoke, Eggsy felt another little ripple of horror. Staring after Harry as he walks away, he feels those ripples combine into a cold wash that covers his insides like seawater.

What the _fuck_ had possessed him, to make him say those things? They must have been lies—all of them, lies. Eggsy looks down; J.B. is pawing at his foot again. He reaches down and picks up the puppy, and turns.

The look of pure hate Charlie is bestowing upon Eggsy makes his gut twist. But is he his father’s son, or isn’t he? He glares right back, until Charlie turns sharply and stomps back into the mess.

Eggsy suddenly can’t stand the thought of being in the same room as all of those twats. So he leans back against the wall, holding J.B. and murmuring nonsense to him. “You’re such a good dog. Such a good pup. No one’s gonna throw you in the river. I’ll kill ‘em if they try. Such a good puppy. You don’t give one shit, do you? No, you don’t. You don’t give a shit ‘bout nothin’. You are a good puppy, yes you are.”

J.B. licks his chin. He smiles, reluctantly. Such a good dog.

Merlin arrives just as Eggsy’s murmuring begins to slip into the soft coo he uses when comforting Daisy. Eggsy immediately shuts up and straightens, standing at complete attention with J.B. still settled comfortably in his arms.

Merlin simply raises one eyebrow calmly, before going to the door to the mess and saying, “Finish your suppers and get to the barracks, we’re done for the day.” As a round of murmured confirmations greets this statement, Merlin turns and asks Eggsy, “Did he do something idiotic again?”

There’s no doubt who he means. “Yes,” Eggsy answers.

Merlin’s mouth tightens, but the expression does not seem to be aimed at Eggsy. He glances up, to some point on the ceiling, and mutters, “I will have to start planting microphones on him if this continues. Ah, well, I shall check his footage later.” Then his eyes drop to Eggsy again, and he orders briskly, “Go on back to the barracks. Starting tomorrow, we wake at five.”

Eggsy salutes him, then trots down the hall in the proper direction. He starts humming songs from My Fair Lady under his breath, very, very quietly. J.B. seems to like it, and it keeps him calm, as anger towards Harry stirs.

Had he thought he was helping? Had he even thought at all? Why did he have to go and make Eggsy cry like that? Why did he have to humiliate Charlie and make him blame Eggsy for everything? Bastard. Cocksucker. Dickhead.

Another tear slides down his cheek and falls on J.B., who whines and grooms himself thoroughly before starting on Eggsy. The human smiles tremulously.

“You’re a good dog,” he murmurs. “Such a good dog.”

~~~\0/~~~

The barracks are never completely dark, but they’re dark enough that, in the middle of the night, when Eggsy wakes covered in a cold sweat, he can’t tell who’s at the sinks. But it _is_ just the sink, so he relaxes, slowly. The faucet is turned off. The padding of bare feet as whoever it is returns to bed. Eggsy closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, letting it out carefully and quietly.

The sound of walking stops at the foot of his bed.

His eyes snap open and he sits up on his elbows. He can’t tell their face, but from the height and hair color it’s Digby.

“What the hell happened to you?” Digby whispers scornfully.

“It’s none of your business,” Eggsy replies flatly, and lays back down again.

“You should still tell us,” Roxy murmurs from Eggsy’s left.

“I don’t have to tell you anything!” Eggsy snarls.

“Yes you do,” Charlie says from across the room, actually sitting up and speaking at a normal volume. “What the fuck was that geezer talking about when he said you were “under his protection”?”

Eggsy turns on his side and pulls his pillow over his head. He doesn’t have to listen to these fucks. He doesn’t have to answer any of them. They wouldn’t care, either. They’re just snobs. They wouldn’t understand, wouldn’t care, wouldn’t like to know anything so unpleasant had ever happened… they’re so naïve. Not innocent—naïve. Stupid fuckers. He doesn’t owe them any explanations.

But hadn’t he wished for someone to talk to?

But none of them are the right kind of person. The right person won’t judge him, won’t think him weak, won’t tell him he’d get better soon—

—an image of Harry—

—but Harry still said it wasn’t his fault. Harry is a liar. No, he can’t tell him, either. Which cycles back around to how he can’t tell anyone—and least of all these chattering idiots, demanding to know what’s wrong, needling him, insulting him, trying to get a response—

“—probably the old man’s kept boy, the dirty old bastard—“

Eggsy sits up faster than a wet cat jumps and hurls his pillow at the speaker. Before anyone can do more than start, he’s out of bed and across the room, because of course it had been Charlie, and slams his fist into Charlie’s nose.

“Don’t you EVER say that!” Eggsy roars, and punches him again, and again, and again. “Don’t you EVER talk ‘bout him like that again, you wanker!”

Someone pulls him off Charlie. He snarls and fights and kicks, shouting obscenities at the top of his lungs, filled with such rage that he actually frightens himself. But he must not show how scared he is. He must not—

There’s a sharp pain in the back of his neck, and then nothing.

~~~\0/~~~

Silence descends on the barracks immediately, as Eggsy sinks to the floor, senseless. Roxy and Rufus let go of him, Rufus quickly, Roxy gently. Charlie falls off the opposite side of his bed, whimpering.

Merlin strolls across the room, adjusting his watch. His face is hard and cold and makes everyone go very quiet indeed, and shuffle out of his way as he walks around the crumpled figure, the little knot of candidates, to stand in front of Charlie.

“You,” Merlin says, as Charlie holds his broken nose, “Get to the medical bay.”

“Yessir,” Charlie mumbles, and stands to wobble out of the barracks. Merlin does not wait for him before going to Eggsy and peering into his face. The boy’s eyes are closed, but his breath is shallow and quick; not quite out of it, then. Interesting. Merlin grabs him, hauls him up, throws the boy over his shoulder, and tells the others, “Go to bed. I will deal with these two. And if I hear that any of you have deliberately set off anyone else again, I shall break your noses myself.”

With that, he turns and leaves the barracks, Eggsy limp over his shoulder.

Slowly, the candidates begin to move. Roxy picks up Eggsy’s thrown pillow and returns it to its proper place, smoothing the blankets out again. The boys whisper and murmur to each other, anxiously; words like “dangerous” and “scared” are bandied about, the second less frequent than the first.

If Eggsy snaps at such slight provocation—what would happen if someone _accidentally_ set him off?

~~~\0/~~~

Eggsy wakes from horrible dreams leaden, angry, and sad.

Leaden, because of the drugs; angry, because of Charlie; sad, because… well, does he need a reason?

He opens his eyes and sees a ceiling very different from the barracks’. It’s tiled, in a checker-board pattern of off-white and tan; and the lights are softer, in some indefinable way. His bed is softer, too, as are the pillow, sheets, and blanket. Careful exploration—the back of his neck is tight and painful—reveals that whatever hit him has been removed. As he lowers his hand, he becomes aware that he is not alone.

“Awake now?” Charlie asks caustically—and rather nasally.

Eggsy turns his head very carefully and stares at the other. Charlie is wearing a very strange contraption on his nose, over which his dark eyes glitter with loathing and triumph. He’s sitting in the single chair; sprawling, actually, in what would be an elegant way if he weren’t so disagreeable.

“Why are _you_ here?” Eggsy croaks.

Charlie grins, and winces as the expression pulls on his nose. “To make sure you don’t move before it wears off properly,” he answers sweetly. “It’s so kind of me to forgive you when you tried to flatten my face.”

“You’re here to rub it in.”

Charlie shrugs, but the smug look on his face says it all.

Eggsy rolls his eyes, and turns his head away so he’s staring at the ceiling again. “I’m not his kept boy,” he says, because he needs to get this clear before anyone comes in. “He got me out of two bad situations and he knew my dad. We owe each other.”

Charlie scoffs. “Pull the other one,” he retorts bluntly. “I saw the way you looked at him when he was making that speech, I heard the way you yelled about him. You fancy him.”

A strange thing happens. Eggsy begins to blush.

He has not blushed in ages. He hasn’t felt uncomfortable in quite this way for ages either. Well, two months isn’t ages, but it feels like it. He has not been accused for fancying anyone since Barry got jealous and told Sarah about Eggsy. It was a good thing Eggsy had already confessed, because Sarah had laughed and said, “You pillock, there’s no way he could like me. We’re friends. Now go away.”

He and Harry aren’t friends though. They don’t even know each other.

Don’t even…

“Oh.” Charlie actually sounds uncomfortable. “Sorry.”

Eggsy rubs his eyes angrily. How dare they water like this. How dare his chest ache like this. How dare he want to get to know Harry better. It’s all so stupid and childish and ridiculous and—and—and—

“I’ll… I’ll go now.”

And Charlie gets up and exits the room. Leaving Eggsy alone, alone, alone once more.

Good. He deserves to be alone.

 


	4. Chapter 4

By morning, Eggsy is ready, though a little stiff, to continue training.

He doesn’t speak the whole day. Not that anyone speaks to him, either; even Roxy is cautious, though she does not shun him like the boys do. Merlin notes this, but says nothing. Eggsy does not resent him for that. He is their teacher and drill sergeant; it’s not in his job description to care.

The only time Eggsy’s cold, closed expression softens is when he smiles at J.B., who is proving to be a stubborn little shit.

Merlin is a liar. Instead of training, they start the day with medical examinations. Eggsy doesn’t talk to the nurse, who doesn’t even seem to notice his silence; she hums tunelessly to herself as she checks him over, every now and then giving orders that he obeys promptly and properly.

There’s a packet of papers, a questionnaire of sorts, for mental health. Eggsy answers automatically, lying on all of them except the ones about sleep. Those, he thinks about carefully before answering.

They’re all sitting in the lobby of the medical bay as they fill out their packets, with the nurse watching. Charlie raises his hand, and she rolls her head around to look at him. “Why are we doing these?” Charlie demands. “There’s nothing wrong with any of us.”

Eggsy represses a snort.

“It’s just to tick all the boxes,” she replies lightly, with an easy smile. “Please be truthful, everyone.”

They all bend their heads over their papers again.

Eggsy is the first to finish. He stands, and the nurse holds out her hand to take the packet. He hands it over. He wants to ask, “Now what?” but his throat is tired.

“Now you wait,” the nurse answers, quite as if he had spoken aloud.

So he sits down again and waits.

The medical stuff takes around three or four hours. There are many of them to one nurse, and the packets are long. When they are done, Merlin comes to fetch them—and he enters the lobby through the A&E door, looking especially grim.

“How’re his signs?” the nurse asks Merlin worriedly.

“The same,” he answers curtly. “Arthur’s coming down to see him in a few hours. Alright, children, there’s been an emergency, so you’re going on the obstacle course until lunch.”

Something about the way his eyes flicker towards Eggsy and away; Eggsy narrows his own eyes suspiciously, but there is nothing he can say or do. So he shuffles out with the rest of them, and they trot through the halls to the indoor obstacle course. Later, of course, they will train outdoors; but Merlin is waiting for rain. That makes no sense to Eggsy. He’s starving for sunlight, for fresh air, for sky above him instead of concrete…

But the rain…

He dares not think of it.

The indoor course is tough enough. The obstacles have been switched in their places, so that they will not grow accustomed to any one layout; this, Eggsy knows without being told. It’s the only logical explanation. And in doing so, they have put one of his fears to rest. He will never run this course half-asleep. He will never incapacitate himself like he did three months ago.

Then again, he’d only been half asleep because the nightmares had made it so impossible to get a full night’s rest—

No, don’t think about it.

They do not run the course with their dogs—not yet. Instead, the puppies are put through their own obstacle course, with someone dressed like an army infantryman coaxing them along. Knowing that his eye is also on them, the candidates start running the course immediately.

Eggsy does very well, actually. He’d done well the day before, too; but he’s rattled by his own thoughts, and doesn’t expect to repeat the experience. But the way the course is set up is actually easier than yesterday. Eggsy suspects foul play.

Merlin comes in on everyone’s third lap, looking even grimmer than before. “Halt,” he calls, and everyone immediately freezes where they’re standing. Eggsy’s the only one who isn’t panting like a dog, though he is breathing heavily and sweating just as much as the others. How strange. He’d thought himself out of shape, but apparently the others are even worse off.

Merlin is murmuring to the army man as they all shuffle over to stand at attention before them.

“—better soon?” the army man asks.

“Galahad’s always pulled through before, he will this time too,” Merlin assures him. “He’s the most stubborn of us, after all. Ah, finished, candidates? Good. Run it one more time so I can make sure of you.”

No one dares groan aloud or protest, but several of them slump. Eggsy doesn’t. Galahad. That’s Harry’s codename, isn’t it? Harry’s injured? Alarm bells go off in Eggsy’s head as his gut twists. No, stop worrying. He’s tough. He’ll pull through. It’s just like Merlin said.

Why does Eggsy give a shit about him?

Because he gives a shit about Eggsy.

_“He’s been under my protection…”_

That must have been a lie, though, surely. Just another piece of ammunition against Charlie. No one had ever protected Eggsy, from anything. That’s why he’d gone into the Marines, right? To learn how to protect himself, and others.

He realizes he’s behind everyone, and puts on a burst of speed. Damn it, he needs to quit thinking, quit thinking and just _do_. Life would be so much easier if he could just _do_ and not think.

Thinking may have put him behind, but doing draws him nearer and nearer the front. He’s almost there—almost—

Digby trips and falls right in front of him. Without hesitating, Eggsy grabs the back of his uniform and drags him upright, then runs on. Never leave a man down—but he doesn’t owe it to him to stop.

Reggie falls next, trying to climb the wall; Eggsy pulls him to his feet, then kneels, grabs Reggie’s right foot, and heaves him up, so his scrabbling fingers hook on the top of the wall. As soon as Reggie’s up, he leans down to give Eggsy a hand.

“Now we’re even,” he pants as Eggsy joins him.

Eggsy just nods.

No one else needs help, for which Eggsy is grateful. He doesn’t want to spend more time helping. He wants to get through the course and not be last.

He’s not last, but he’s not first. That award goes to Roxy, who, despite having a shorter stride than the boys, is immensely more nimble. Eggsy admires her, grudgingly; mostly he feels a kind of friendly combativeness.

Friendly. Friend?

Eggsy wipes his forehead on his sleeve as he comes to a halt at the end of the course. As he falls in beside Roxy for cool-down stretches, she grins at him. He manages a small smile back.

Friend.

~~~\0/~~~

Not friend.

“Why don’t you just shower?” Roxy asks, frowning slightly.

Eggsy scrubs with a wet washcloth as much of himself as he can reach, then dunks it in the sink again, swishes it around, and pulls it out to scrub some more. He doesn’t turn around, though he does glance in the mirror. Roxy commands the showers all to herself, while the other boys watch a football match and don’t even glance at her. They are all too well-bred to watch a naked woman who is not a porn star do anything, least of all wash. Eggsy is trying to keep his back to her, as well. He caught a glimpse of her bottom and blushed in shame; but now he meets her eyes in the mirror and shakes his head stiffly. He does not shower. He has not showered since he came home. Bathed, yes; and he’s done what he’s doing now, washing out of the sink. But that’s all he can stand.

You’d think it’d be the other way ‘round; showers that only remind him of rain, instead of baths that remind him of half-drowning. But fear is a funny thing. It latches on to moments and sensations and links them to others that make very little sense except to the person who feels the fear. In Eggsy’s case… it’s the storm that he remembers, more than the drowning. The storm that had taken four people away and out to sea. The rain on his upturned face. Blood on his face and in the water.

No. Eggsy does not like showers.

He continues wiping with his washcloth.

When he is done, he dresses in a clean uniform, puts J.B. on a leash, and heads out without saying a word. Everyone assumes he’s taking J.B. out to piss and poo; Merlin had shown them a nice little garden just a few corridors over where they’re to take their pups for that. And Eggsy does bring J.B. there… but when the pug is done, Eggsy tucks him in the front of his jumpsuit and heads softly to the medical bay.

It’s not hard to find Harry’s room; the medical bay is silent and dark, so Eggsy simply follows the vague echo of voices and the warm yellow glow of a light down a wing. The door is partly open. Eggsy peers in carefully; there is Merlin, and some other man, and…

“Is he gonna be alright?”

It’s the first time he’s spoken all day. His voice is slightly rusty—slightly. He can’t take his eyes off Harry. He’d been hoping it would just be some injury like a broken bone, maybe a bit of internal bleeding; but something about the machines surrounding him and the medical equipment attached to him and the quality of his stillness tell Eggsy that Harry is not “just” hurt.

“We must have hope, Eggsy,” Merlin answers, gently. “If I were you, I’d concentrate on making it through the tests, make him proud.”

Eggsy nods. But he doesn’t want to leave. So instead he steps a little further forward and asks, “What’s wrong with ‘im?”

“Coma,” the other man replies tartly, though his gaze is pensive and slightly pitying as it rests on Eggsy. “He had a run-in with something new. Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

Eggsy can’t help it, his face sours, his hands cradle J.B. closer to his chest, and he answers, “Not til the others are asleep.”

Merlin sighs. “Go to bed, Eggsy,” he orders. “They’ll be out by the time you get back.”

Eggsy gives him a suspicious look, but, with one last glance at Harry, he retreats.

Merlin was right. Everyone is asleep. Eggsy creeps to his bed, changes into his pajamas, and crawls underneath the blankets. He dreams that Harry’s room is flooding, and he can’t get the door open. No matter what he tries, he can’t save him.

~~~\0/~~~

The next day, they finally start training their puppies. The morning is full of teaching the puppies tricks; J.B. doesn’t like it. Then again, he doesn’t like anything that isn’t his own idea. Eggsy loves his little pug, but sometimes he can be a trial.

Like when Merlin sets them the task of running with their puppies, in full gear, and J.B. won’t run.

“Come on, J.B.!” Eggsy looks up and sees the others moving forward, their own puppies excited for this new game. He scowls and turns back to J.B. “I’m not comin’ last ‘cause of you!” he declares, and, on impulse points his gun at the trembling little doggy. “I’ll shoot you, got it, I’ll _fuckin’_ shoot you!”

J.B. just trembles and whimpers.

“Merlin said we’re not allowed to hold you!” Eggsy reminds the dog, almost begging. He feels bad immediately for threatening his one friend. But when he glances up, the others are so much farther ahead…

“Bollocks,” he mutters, grabs J.B., tucks him in the front of his vest, and starts running again.

He catches up just before they reach the finish line, and while everyone else gives him funny looks, Merlin, waiting there with a stopwatch, gives a funny twitch of his lips like he’s about to smile. Eggsy glares, but says nothing. He hasn’t spoken a word to any other human being today either. He doesn’t think he’s going to.

This afternoon, the puppies nap after their morning run, and the humans have lessons. It’s all individualized; each of them gets their own booklet of lessons, and an exercise book for writing their answers to each question. And it’s a good thing it’s individualized, because Eggsy is pretty damn sure he is far, far behind the others in some areas. In others, though, he knows for a fact that he is the best in the class. It’s not hubris; Eggsy knows from the talk he’s overheard that none of the other candidates have actually trained in, with, or for the military. None of them have had to learn the things he has.

Somehow, this is comforting.

He isn’t the first to finish, but he isn’t the last. That is another thing to be comforted by. He spends the rest of the given time contemplating the shorn place where his pinkie had been, as the fingers of his right hand explore the surfaces of his medal. It still hurts occasionally, and is quite pink, because it’s only been two weeks since they’d taken out the stiches. He can’t remember why they’d cut off his finger. Something about it being cut all to hell anyway. He was gonna lose it whatever he did, so they’d chosen amputation. Mind, they had all been half mad with terror, despair, and grief; Eggsy would have lopped off his entire hand, the hand that couldn’t hold on, that had let her slip away…

“Eggsy, it’s time to go.”

His head jerks up, and he blinks a few times to hold back the water in his eyes. It’s Merlin standing by his desk, while everyone else is waiting impatiently at the door. Eggsy scowls back at them all and stands, inching past Merlin to stride to the little knot, J.B. trotting at his heels.

Strangely enough, Merlin leads the candidates further into the house, and upstairs, where he leaves them in a hall that terminates on a single door. Everyone stands awkwardly, except Eggsy, who decides to sit on the floor and pet J.B. a little.

Such a good puppy. He couldn’t give two shits about following orders. And he likes to just sit and be pet. Eggsy can feel himself calm, can feel his face relaxing into a small smile, as J.B. sprawls in his lap and grooms. Such a good puppy.

The door opens. A young, light-skinned black woman stands in the doorway, her explosively curly hair pulled back severely, dressed all in shades of yellow.

“Rufus?” she reads off a clipboard, looking up and dazzling them all with a smile. “Let’s start with you, please.” She has an American accent, but not obnoxious.

Rufus strides forward, his pup close at his heels. The young woman steps sideways so he can pass, then leans down and scritches the pup’s ears. The pup’s tail wags very hard, and she giggles, before closing the door behind the three of them.

Everyone else continues to stand around. Roxy comes and sits next to Eggsy, who is playing fight-the-hand with J.B.

“What happened to your finger?” Roxy whispers.

Eggsy is feeling calm enough to answer. “Had to chop it off,” he replies, also in a whisper. “We wasn’t thinkin’ straight. Might’ve saved it, might not’ve.”

Roxy brings her knees up to her chest and wraps her arms around them. “We?”

“Yeah. It was—“ No, he’s not feeling good enough for this. “It was me an’ another bloke. There were others there, but they weren’t much help.”

Roxy nods, seems to know not to press in that direction. Instead she gives a surreptitious sniff and makes a face. “You definitely need a real shower tonight,” she informs him softly.

Eggsy takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “I’ll try,” he whispers.

Roxy nudges him with her elbow, but says nothing more.

After about fifteen minutes Rufus emerges from the room at the end of the hall looking puzzled and discomfited; the woman in yellow calls for Charlie next. The boys crowd around Rufus to hear what he has to say.

“She’s a psychiatrist,” Rufus answers the urgent questions. “Her name’s Dr. Wallace, and the lady in yellow, Delphine, she’s her student—she said she just wanted to check up on some of the answers on that questionnaire we all did. They’re both really nice. I just don’t understand why they wanted to see _me_.”

Eggsy looks up when he hears the psychiatrist’s name, and feels a chill. Dr. Wallace? Not the same Dr. Wallace who—

“Gary?”

Everyone looks at Eggsy with shock. They hadn’t known his real name. He ignores them, climbing to his feet with J.B. under his arm, passing a confused Charlie on his way to the psychiatrist’s student, who smiles encouragingly. Eggsy can’t smile back, but he nods in greeting, as he steps into the office, and hears the door close like the door of a dungeon.

No, that’s too dramatic. The door closes, Eggsy takes the comfy armchair Delphine waves him to, and he finds himself facing Dr. Wallace.

She’s the same doctor, alright, and she looks the same as she had the last time they spoke; every black-and-silver hair in place in a high bun, caramel skin with a great profusion of freckles, sensible brown suit, and halfway through pregnancy. She smiles, a little wickedly.

“Hello again, Eggsy,” she greets him cheerfully, as Delphine settles in a chair a little closer to the doctor. “Been a while, no? This is my student Delphine Katsaros. Hope you don’t mind, she’ll be sitting in on this appointment.”

“’S fine,” Eggsy mumbles.

“So, I see here on this packet that you’re doing well,” Dr. Wallace begins, flipping through the papers. “How’s your sleep been?”

“Bad,” he answers shortly.

“Bad how? Do you wake up in the night often?”

“Every night. And it takes a while to get back to sleep.”

“How are your nightmares?”

Eggsy considers. “Worse.”

“Still the one about the storm?”

“Yeah.”

“Anything new happen in it? Any new faces, sensations?”

“No. Always the same.” Eggsy’s trembling now. He keeps his arms lightly looped around J.B. and refuses to squeeze him. Just the presence and contact of something warm and alive helps keep him grounded. “Last night—last night I dreamed I couldn’t—never mind,” he mumbles, eyes dropping to the carpet.

Dr. Wallace does not press. Instead she asks gently, “Do you still use your medal?”

“Every day,” Eggsy replies, his voice cracking a little.

“Does it do you any good?”

“Yeah. Always feel better with it. And him.” He tickles J.B. under the chin; the pug licks his finger briskly for a moment before yawning and settling back in Eggsy’s arms.

Dr. Wallace takes a moment to write on her notes. Delphine leans forward and asks, “Can I pet him?”

Eggsy, startled, just nods and puts J.B. on the floor. The puppy protests this maneuver, but Delphine slides out of her chair and onto her knees, holding out her hand to J.B. and making soft cooing sounds, and the puppy trots over to sniff her fingers. Dr. Wallace finishes writing and smiles to see her student petting the pug puppy.

“You don’t have to pet _all_ the dogs,” she chides gently.

“But I want to,” Delphine replies sedately, tossing her hair as she turns her head to look up at her teacher. “And they let—what is it?”

Eggsy is staring at the curved scar over her ear. It’s barely visible, but as she shifts, the shape is clear under the kinks that have begun to escape their restraining pins. It’s like his own. Absently, he reaches up and touches his own crescent. He doesn’t know why, but it feels important.

Delphine picks up J.B. and returns him to Eggsy’s lap. Then, still kneeling, she reaches up and puts her hand over his. It’s warm and rough, and her smile is kind as spring sunshine.

“It’s okay,” she says. “It’s okay, Eggsy. It’s not your fault.”

And for once, he believes it.

~~~\0/~~~

The other candidates are growing bored as they wait for Eggsy to finish. It has been an hour and a half. At one point, there had been sounds like shouting, and then crying; but they had been muffled by distance and the door, so none of them are quite sure of what they heard.

“Do you think it’s true?” Digby suddenly asks Charlie. “That he’s the reason we’re all supposed to see a psychiatrist? Because he’s fucked up and it needs to be fair?”

Charlie frowns. “I don’t know,” he snaps, “And I don’t care. I just want supper, damn it. What the fuck’s taking so long?”

Digby’s rude, too-loud comment has set Roxy thinking, and she’s not sure she likes the thoughts she’s having. Eggsy is not “fucked up”, although there is obviously something wrong. Well, look at him; missing a finger and a scar on his head, horrible temper, fear of running water, the terror in his voice when he’d shouted “Never again!” that first night, and his reaction to Amelia’s—death. Something is off. But how to go about getting him to say it?

Ten minutes after Digby’s theory is aired, Eggsy walks out, looking exhausted. His eyes are red-rimmed, his shoulders are slumped, and J.B. is tucked in the front of his jumpsuit. He’s also clutching a little paper bag that rattles faintly when he moves it. He walks right past everyone, and doesn’t seem to hear when Roxy calls after him tentatively.

The woman in yellow is standing in the doorway. “Digby,” she says, quite calmly.

They fall back into the pattern of fifteen minutes each. None of them want to discuss their visit with the others, but there is a common theme:

How well do they work with the others?

~~~\0/~~~

Eggsy doesn’t like the idea of taking medicine, but one of the ones Dr. Wallace had prescribed had a sleep aid. She said it would help him sleep the whole night through, though she wasn’t sure what it would do to his dreams. It’s also an antidepressant, which Eggsy isn’t sure he needed; the anxiety medication, he’s definitely willing to give a try. But why would she give him painkillers?

He understands when, as obedient as ever, he takes his first doses at dinner, ignoring the way everyone stares as he takes little plastic bottles out of the paper bag and shakes out one of each pill. He takes them with his first mug of tea; and by the end of the meal, he’s feeling sleepy, less afraid of the night-terrors to come, and completely free of pain. He hadn’t even noticed the pains in his joints and hand and head; maybe he’d just grown accustomed to them.

He is very careful to change the combination on his locker when no one’s paying attention, and spins the dial to zero with a breath of relief. Hopefully, it will take them all a day to figure out the new combination.

Maybe it’s a silly precaution to take, but he doesn’t want to take the chance that someone might mess with his pills. Probably Charlie would. He’d probably dump them down the toilet.

Strange. Eggsy has always been anxious, but he’d never felt… well, paranoid is the only way he can put it. It’s probably not medical paranoia, probably just very specific fear, but he suddenly feels like he must be very, very careful, otherwise everyone will try to steal his medicine. Already, he’s too in love with this feeling of clean, fearless tiredness.

He doesn’t remember snuggling down under his blankets, or falling asleep; but he remembers the vividness of the dream, leaping into sudden, terrifying focus.

_“Let go, Eggsy.”_

_“No!” There are hot tears mixing with numbingly cold sea water on his face, blurring his vision more than the rain. The rain, that lashes his face like tiny icicles, stinging his head and hands. He dares not let go of the raft—the ropes rough, cutting into his palm, but it’s the rope or death—or Sarah, whose face holds a calm he won’t accept. Can’t accept. Will never accept. “Sarah, please—“_

~~~\0/~~~

It does not escape anyone’s notice that, while the circles under Eggsy’s eyes have lightened, he looks particularly haunted today, and again, he does not speak. But this time it’s not just surliness; it’s like he literally _cannot_ speak. He keeps his head down, and he keeps rubbing that damn medal, or touching the spot where his finger should be. He also takes to rubbing the scar above his ear. Some of the other candidates begin to suspect brain damage.

That would explain why, halfway through lunch, which Eggsy doesn’t eat, just like he refused breakfast, Delphine comes to the door of the mess (she’s wearing all subdued oranges today) and asks, “Eggsy, can Dr. Wallace have a word with you?”

Eggsy nods, stands, and walks out with Delphine.

The other candidates finish eating, and attempt to discuss what might happen this afternoon; but the conversation is interrupted by Merlin arriving, counting them, and frowning.

“Where’s Eggsy?” he demands.

“With Dr. Wallace,” Roxy replies.

Merlin’s frown disappears. “Ah,” he says. “That explains it. Alright, candidates, let’s get on with work.”

~~~\0/~~~

The days fall into a pattern. An early morning run; breakfast; physical training; lunch; two hours of bookwork; afternoon miscellany; evening run; dinner; bed. The afternoon miscellany is things like building, taking apart, and tampering with machinery and various technologies; anatomy lessons with real cadavers; field medicine (with dummies, thank god); and one memorable afternoon spent on a debate about politics that escalates into a shouting match between Charlie and Eggsy. Up until that day, Eggsy has not spoken to anyone except Dr. Wallace and Merlin, and it comes out that Eggsy is well versed in British politics. He beats Charlie in the debate, and then goes on to soundly and resolutely _conquer_ the debate, until Charlie is left sitting stunned and shamed while Eggsy catches his breath.

Merlin checks his watch. “Time for a break,” he announces calmly.

The medicine is working, but in completely the wrong way, to Eggsy’s way of thinking. Without fear to hold him back, suddenly his anger is greater, fiercer, more destructive. Without pain, he overreaches and is too confident, and ends up having to take two pain pills instead of one every night. He sleeps the night through; but the night-terrors grow stronger, and more varied, and there is always water.

He manages to shower a few times, but they leave him shaking and terrified and he has to go to the garden and cry, far from where any of his fellow candidates can hear. At least he smells better.

And he continues to dream that he can’t save Harry.


	5. Storms

“Where are my meds?”

Eggsy asks this, bewildered, as a kind of rhetorical question; but as he looks around, an automatic response, he sees smirks on certain faces.

They have just lost the first candidate, Reggie. He failed a timed trial to hack into a test system, and was sent packing. He hadn’t been doing that well at anything else, either. But it has really brought home the fact that they are all in danger of being dismissed. So this—this prank—this angers Eggsy. He _needs_ these meds. He needs them to function.

“I think you took them all,” Roxy answers him, as she sits on her bed with her book she’s borrowed from the library upstairs. She looks worried, as Eggsy glares around suspiciously at the other candidates. “It’s been a month, after all.”

“She gave me two months’ worth,” he retorts, and goes back to digging through his locker. Surely if he finished them off he’d still have the bottles. And it can’t have been a month. It doesn’t feel possible for it to have been a full month.

He finds the bottle for his pain medication, but it’s empty. That, he’s not surprised by; he’s been taking more and more of them, as he realizes what it’s like to _not_ be in pain constantly. But he can’t find anything else.

Someone snickers. He whirls around sharply, but everyone has turned away. It is almost time for bed, though some of the others intend to watch some college rugby match that Eggsy doesn’t care about. Roxy is absorbed in her book. Eggsy considers her… but she is a friend, and she has reminded him once or twice when he forgot to take his medicine, for which he is eternally grateful. It’s not her.

Charlie? No, he is not one to fuck with Eggsy that way. How about Rufus? His disdain is sharp enough, he might have done it. But Eggsy is sure, is absolutely certain, that that disdain has kept him far from Eggsy’s few possessions. Digby is outspoken; but he would not _do_ anything. And Hugo? Eh, possible. Personally, Eggsy thinks he’s a bit too stupid to think of sabotage. Eggsy doesn’t think the others would bother either.

So either Roxy is right, and he took them all; or Eggsy is wrong, and someone _did_ steal them.

He can hardly go searching everyone else’s belongings, though. Maybe he could mention it to Merlin? Merlin wouldn’t care, though. He’d just say the same thing Roxy did and send him to Dr. Wallace.

Mind, he’s seeing Dr. Wallace much more often, or rather, he’s seeing Delphine; it turns out she’s studying to be a therapist as well as a psychiatrist, “In case one of ‘em doesn’t work out, because it’s a damn shame there aren’t more of either.” How she finds the time, Eggsy will never know. But he’s glad, because while Dr. Wallace needs to know his symptoms, she doesn’t need to know that he still dreams he can’t open the door, can’t escape the endless corridors, can’t save his friends—because now sometimes it isn’t Sarah, it’s Amelia, and last night it had been an odd dream-mixture-flicker-same-yet-not of mum and Roxy. He can’t bear to have it be one or the other. His imagination is increasing in scope as well as strength.

But at least he sleeps the night through.

He’s told Delphine all of this, and about his anger, and the way every bad thought and feeling increases when he hasn’t taken his pain pills. It has helped, just the talking about it; it really has helped. But it’s not enough.

And now his medicine is gone.

It’s been twenty-four hours since he last took them. He tries hard to remember; had he felt the emptiness of the bottles? Had he looked in and seen there was nothing? No, he is absolutely sure he has more than enough. He can’t have taken them all.

“One night won’t hurt,” he mutters, though he hears the hint of desperation in his own voice. “Then I’ll look again tomorrow, and if I can’t find them—if I can’t find them, I’ll ask for more.” Yes. That is a good, simple, sensible plan. He can follow it.

He crawls into bed, JB warming his feet, and tries to sleep.

His body is so used to the drugs already, he can’t just sleep. The rugby match is too loud. Roxy’s light is too bright. His legs are so tired they prickle. He’s afraid of dreams.

Eventually, he gives up. He stands and starts pacing, measuring the length of the barracks in steps. He rubs his scar, his medal, his hand; he cracks his knuckles, bites his fingernails. He’s too afraid of dreams to sleep.

Even when the match is over and everyone else is finding their beds, he paces. No one tells him not to. He knows he’s keeping at least some people awake, but he doesn’t really care. He just keeps rubbing his medal, gripping it with both hands, trying to focus on it. It hasn’t changed in seventeen years. It is constant and calm, the embodiment of his aspirations and—

— _“He’s been under my protection”_ —

—and the symbol of his dad, killed by Kingsman, but wanting to be part of them. Is he his father’s son or not? He wants to be brave and good like his dad, wants to be—

“Just go to bed already,” someone groans.

“Fuck you,” Eggsy answers absently.

“No, really,” Roxy murmurs, “Please just go to bed. You’ll be useless in the morning otherwise.”

Useless. The brave and good do not let themselves be useless. Eggsy hesitates, then trudges to his bower of fear and nestles under the covers, trembling.

~~~\0/~~~

Morning, and inspection time. Merlin has added this only recently, and Eggsy doesn’t understand why. He’s never really gotten out of the habit of preparing for inspection, though; and even if the others scoff at him for making sure his boots are just so and his bed is made properly and J.B. has learnt to sit in the correct manner, he knows he got extra marks for doing it properly since the first day.

But as Merlin walks through the door, he frowns. Eggsy knows why. He hadn’t made his bed properly, and he is not exactly shipshape himself; he didn’t sleep at all last night. And he hasn’t eaten for two days, which has made him feel a little dizzy. It’s worse this morning. That’s no excuse though, he knows that.

Merlin does not say anything at first. He merely walks up and down the room, slowly, checking that everything is perfect, and then turns his attentions to the candidates. Eggsy is standing at the end of the line because he doesn’t want to be too near anyone. By the time Merlin gets to him, the frown has cleared; but it returns as soon as he makes it to Eggsy.

“Explain,” Merlin says simply.

“Couldn’t sleep,” Eggsy answers. “Ran out of medicine.”

The frown deepens. “She gave you two months’ worth.”

“I know. An’ I was taking only one each, honest. But I can’t find the rest.”

Eggsy waits, cringing slightly, for Merlin’s verdict. But Merlin doesn’t yell at him. Instead, Merlin turns to the others and says coldly, “Turn out your lockers. All of you. _Now_.”

They scatter and do so—and just as Eggsy finishes stacking his things on his bed, searching once again for his pills, he hears Merlin rumble, “Archibald, a Kingsman does not steal from his fellows. And a decent human being does not steal a fellow human being’s medicine.”

“I was gonna give ‘em back,” Archie defends himself weakly.

“Pack your bags,” Merlin retorts curtly. “And give me—where are his pain pills?”

Everyone goes very still. Archie slowly reddens, as his expression grows ashamed. But he doesn’t say what he did.

Eggsy looks at the little bottle in his hand. He’d honestly believed he’d taken them all. Fuck, his head hurts.

“Did you take them too?”

“N-no.”

“What did you do with them?”

“I think—“ Eggsy’s throat is dry. He tries to swallow, can’t bring any moisture back into his mouth. No one hears him, too fixed on the drama between Merlin and Archie.

“I—I—“ But it’s no use lying to Merlin. So Archie drops his eyes to the floor and mumbles, “I dumped them down the toilet.”

Eggsy’s head is throbbing, and he’s starting to hurt in his gut. Is this withdrawal? No, it’s only that he hasn’t eaten. His appetite had been returning, but he’d showered a few days ago and that had taken it away again very quickly.

“Get out,” Merlin orders coldly.

~~~\0/~~~

“You’re playing favorites again.”

Merlin adjusts his glasses. Arthur waits patiently for an answer.

“It is very hard not to,” Merlin begins slowly, “When the others are so very far behind. Roxanne, Charles, and Gary are outstripping the competition fast.”

“Gary is dependent on drugs,” Arthur retorts. “Dr. Wallace gave me her report; she believes he needs them, or he might snap again.”

“ _I_ believe he only needs them until he learns better control,” Merlin replies calmly. “We have several agents who have been through worse than him and come out fine. Perhaps a tutor instead of a therapist—“

“No,” Arthur interrupts sharply. “I paid good money to hire Dr. Wallace and Ms. Kataros, I’m not letting that money go to waste. And besides, we can’t spare anyone. Not even Galahad, if he wakes up.”

“ _When_ he wakes up,” Merlin corrects.

Arthur levels an exasperated stare at Merlin, who shows a completely bland expression. “When he wakes up,” he agrees with a sigh. “Furthermore, there is the chance Gary may do away with himself if they take him off medication, and that is unacceptable. I’ll not have someone that weak-willed at my table.”

Merlin represses the urge to shout his answer. Shouting is not healthy. “It is not a matter of _will_ , sir, it is a matter of _mind_. He showed no suicidal tendencies when he wasn’t on medication. He shows no signs now. Dr. Wallace told me that she believes he is too firmly grounded to experience the kind of mania that would lead to that end. He can be weaned off the medications; but I advise he at least keep the pain pills. He improved exponentially when he began taking them.”

Arthur eyes him with suspicion for a moment, then nods. “As long as he doesn’t become addicted.”

Merlin decides not to say anything about that.

~~~\0/~~~

Now that Merlin has shown favoritism, the animosity increases to pure hate. Eggsy can bear that. He’d borne it from the void, after all.

Why _does_ the void hate him? Because he can’t be controlled? Because he refused to join the void’s gang? Because he stands up to the void?

It doesn’t matter. Eggsy is not there anymore. When he comes home, though—that will be the time to demand answers.

In the meantime, he’d better finish his lessons.

As he does so, there is a rumble that shakes the manor, and the faint pissing, pattering sound of rain.

Eggsy stands so abruptly that the others notice and look up at him, curious; he doesn’t see, staring white-lipped out at the rain. It has been cloudy and dark all day; and here is the reason.

“Done, candidate?”

Merlin’s voice penetrates the rising panic, and Eggsy forces himself to walk at a normal pace to the front of the room, to turn in his books. He’s been getting better, taking tests regularly and catching up to the others. It’s like leveling up in a video game; maybe it takes him longer each time, but he’s steadily rising, as they flounder through their own levels. He’s always been able to learn quickly; and the way things are done here makes it even easier.

But the rain—he’s never been above ground when it’s rained here. The water ticks on the huge windows, and he can feel it crawl down the back of his neck—no, that’s just fear-sweat.

Merlin silently hands him a new lesson book and three larger, heftier textbooks. Eggsy accepts them all and goes back to his seat. He’ll have to take these back to the barracks to read. Thankfully, that is allowed.

Patter. Patter. Tick. Tick. Patter. Tick.

His hands shake as he flips through the first textbook. But he is safe inside. He is dry and warm and safe.

Another rumble of thunder, and lightning flashes. Eggsy is across the room, his back to the wall, as far from the windows as possible, before he can even think. Someone snickers.

“Back to your seat, candidate.”

First, Eggsy slides to the corner. Then he slides along the wall perpendicular to the one to which he had fled. If he keeps to the walls, the lightning and rain can’t get him. But he has to step away from the wall to get to his seat.

Another flash of lightning. Eggsy squeezes his eyes shut and walks very fast, bumping into his table and sitting down again quickly, grabbing his textbook and yanking it towards himself, all with his eyes closed tight. Only when he has a firm grip on the book does he open his eyes. It’s not in braille, after all, and they haven’t been taught braille yet anyway.

If he keeps his head down at just the right angle, he can read without seeing the windows. Patter tick patter tick. At least he’s not out in it. He keeps reminding himself of that. At least he’s not outside.

Merlin stands, and that is the signal for everyone to stop what they’re doing. “Alright, candidates, it’s time for some outdoor work,” he announces.

Eggsy’s eyes go very wide and the sweat increases. Please god no.

“Sir,” Roxy says tentatively, glancing at Eggsy.

“What’ll we be doing?” Charlie asks nervously.

Merlin raises an eyebrow. “Just a run,” he assures them all dryly, and his eyes fix on Eggsy. “Full gear. If you can’t keep up, a mark against you.”

Several people glance out the window, dubious. Eggsy doesn’t bother, trying to plead with his eyes—but it doesn’t work. Merlin’s are hard as stone. So Eggsy stands, closes his books, and stacks them up neatly. Everyone else takes that as a signal. When everyone is standing with their books under their arms, Merlin leads the way out of the room.

Full gear isn’t bad. Eggsy’s used to that. But… but can’t they run after the rain’s stopped? When everything’s still sloppy and wet, but there’s nothing to fear? No. Of course they can’t wait.

So Eggsy sneaks another pill for anxiety, and gears up, giving J.B. one last scratch before they all tramp outside.

The wind is wild, whipping and wuthering and just generally being annoying. There’s very little light left, except that from the windows of the manor. Eggsy hesitates in the doorway, but Merlin is behind him, so he steps out, and the rain hits him.

_At first he thinks he’s still drowning but no it’s the rain filling his mouth and nose and eyes and beating on his bare head cold as ice just as cold as the sea_

There’s a small hand on his elbow, towing him further out into the drowning rain. His body remembers what he’s supposed to be doing, even as his mind screams terror.

_Treading water furiously kicking off his heavy boots swimming towards the dark mass bobbing on the waves towing Sarah with him “Stay with me please stay with me we’re almost there I promise”_

Feet treading mud, running, catching up to the others. They do not follow the paved path; no, that would be too easy. They wander almost aimlessly across the lawn, past the lawn, into the acreage beyond.

_Hands catch his shoulders his own hand clutching the rope rain like ice numbing his fingers until he can’t feel_

His face is numb, as are his hands. He doesn’t realize he’s dropped his gun until he trips over it and falls face-first into the ground.

_Can’t breathe_

The mud is in his nose. He blows it out, scrabbling around for his gun—there, a pale twiggy thing like an unusually straight branch. His hands close on it but he can’t feel it.

_Can’t see_

He looks up—and can’t see the others.

_Everyone clinging together, shivering, terrified_

He’s all alone.

He kneels in the mud, feels sobs welling up in his throat. He can’t tell if the burning of his eyes is caused by tears or lashing rain. If there are tears on his face they’re too cold to feel.

A figure jogging through the dark and the mud and the rain. Eggsy stares up at them, confused and frozen with memory-fear and current terror. He thinks he recognizes the flash of glass.

“Get up, Eggsy,” the figure says, and it has Merlin’s voice. It’s not right, though; there’s emotion in it, and it’s not all hard. “You’re not too far behind. Come on, follow me.”

Slowly, stiffly, cringing, Eggsy gets to his feet. His knees don’t want to hold him. But fear gives unexpected strength, and, just as it had that night, it stiffens his skeleton, tightens his muscles, makes him ready to _move_. So when the figure with Merlin’s voice starts jogging away, he follows easily. His body knows what to do. It does not need his mind to run.

Finally, he catches sight of the others. He lets himself have one little whimper of relief, and puts on a burst of speed, passing the figure, to catch up with the group.

“Thought we lost you,” Charlie shouts through a roar of thunder. “What, did you fall down?”

Eggsy nods stiffly, then manages to yell back over the rain, “Yeah. Tripped.”

“Gotta stick together in this,” Roxy hollers. “Come on, boys, nearly there.”

As a group, they follow the path they had learned over the course of the week, and finally, finally see the manor lights again.

_Lights. Life. A ship come to save them. Cheers and sobs. “Thank god! Thank god!”_

Thank god.

When they reach the door, they see Merlin in a black slicker writing on his clipboard. He counts them, nods, and opens the door, leading the way back inside.

“And now,” he says, as everyone catches their breath and Eggsy chokes down sobs of relief, “You get a treat. Go downstairs, turn left, and choose a door.”

Everyone looks confused, but Eggsy thinks he knows what’s coming. No. No, it’s not a treat to him. But he can pretend.

Dripping water and tracking mud on the beautiful crimson carpets, they head to the kitchen; there they leave a trail on the sensible tile. Down to the cellar, where the stone receives the last of their drippings. Then they turn left, reach a hall lined with doors, and all choose one. Charlie opens his first, and gives a whoop of delight. “A proper bath!” he cries, and darts inside.

Everyone hurries, giving cries of ecstasy at finally, _finally_ getting private baths all their own; and Eggsy trudges into his chosen room, closes the door, and begins to shed his gear, looking around with trepidation.

The bath is one of those very old-fashioned metal ones that sit on the floor and has a high curved bit to lean back on, with a thankfully modern faucet; but there’s a shower in the corner, and a plethora of towels on a shelf. Eggsy doesn’t care that the room is tiled in an opalescent white, or that there’s a long mirror on one wall, or that there’s a sink, or that the room is quite small; he walks immediately to the shower and turns it on to as hot as possible, and steps into the spray.

When he’s red all over and thoroughly warmed, he turns off the water and goes to the towels, using three of them to make sure he is completely, 100% dry.

Only then does he realize he has no clothes.

His uniform is crumpled, dirty, and wet, and left on the floor. He realizes with a twinge that he should have rinsed it in the bath and hung it over the high end to dry, then used a towel or two on it; but he hadn’t, and now he had nothing to wear. He could hardly go wandering the halls in just a towel.

But he might have to. So he wraps a towel firmly around his waist, opens his door and peers out nervously…

There’s a clean uniform, dry and pressed, folded neatly in front of the door.

He does not hesitate and he does not think about it. He grabs the clothes, closes the door firmly, and dresses. There’s a clean pair of pants, too, and socks; someone raided his locker. But that’s fine. He feels better, dry and clean and dressed.

He gathers his gear, exits the room, and trots off down the hall to find the barracks.

~~~\0/~~~

“Why are you so afraid of storms?”

Eggsy shrugs and continues playing with J.B..

Technically, it’s lights-out; but everyone is still awake, invigorated by the treat of a good soak. These spoiled little brats. But Eggsy can’t blame them; he’d liked the privacy very much. No one had seen him cry. And now he plays with a sleepy puppy and is tireder than tired.

“No, really, Eggsy.” Roxy sits sideways on the edge of his bed, keeping her voice down. The boys are knotted at the far end of the room, talking their own boring talk. “It’s obvious it’s debilitating. What’s wrong? Did something happen when you were little?”

Eggsy shakes his head stiffly. J.B. seems to sense his mood, because he abruptly stops trying to eat Eggsy’s hand and instead starts washing his fingers. “Ha—Galahad wouldn’t have picked him if it was from when I was little,” he murmurs back. He’s decided. It’s time to tell someone. Someone other than a doctor. “When I was in the Marines. We were just about to graduate. They—I don’t know who or why—they assigned most of my class to a sub. I think one of us was in witness protection and had to be hidden. It was hit.” He feels so numb, all through his insides. “My best friend—she didn’t make it.” He puts his left hand palm-up on his knee and spreads his four fingers. The hand that couldn’t save her. “It was storming. Bad. Worse than today. We couldn’t even find her body.”

Roxy is silent for a long time. Eggsy begins to shake. Couldn’t save her—and no one had cared. No one but him. He strokes J.B. gently and wishes he could cry out his anger and grief. And he wouldn’t mind crying in front of Roxy; he trusts her. She’s as close to a friend as he’ll ever get here. But it just isn’t done.

“Eggsy, I’m so sorry,” Roxy whispers, and she does sound sorry, and a little shocked. Eggsy doesn’t say that it’s alright, because it’s not. But he nods, and tickles J.B.’s tummy. He’s still shaking. Roxy stands and hugs him firmly, tucking her chin over his head. He closes his eyes tight and listens to her heartbeat. It is calming. As long as no one sees—

“Hey! I thought you said you weren’t gonna favor anyone!” a male voice cries indignantly.

“I said I wasn’t going to favor _you_ ,” Roxy calls back, twisting just enough to glare over her shoulder. Eggsy opens his eyes again, startled. Favor? That’s right; Roxy’s the only girl any of them have seen for a month and a half, and only the fact that she broke Reggie’s instep that one time has kept the others from trying anything. It had made for some interesting not-fights between the boys. Eggsy had tried to steer clear and let her fight her own battles, but once or twice—

“Who’s been askin’ favors?” he growls quietly, regaining her attention. She smiles tightly.

“Don’t worry about it,” she assures him lightly, “I’ll just break one of them again and they’ll leave me alone. Are you gonna be okay?”

“I gotta, don’t I?” Eggsy pulls away a little and she lets go, though she keeps one arm around his shoulders. He rubs his eyes and cuddles J.B. a little closer. He can’t lean on anyone; but surely he can take a little comfort?

~~~\0/~~~

It’s still storming.

This time, they run on the paved path. Eggsy gives over to numb fear and runs without thinking, keeping close to the group. About halfway through, he trips over his own feet, and then he can’t get up again. He makes it to his hands and knees, and then he has to twist and sit down and put his head on his knees and take huge gulping breaths, hands pressed firmly against the ground, the beautifully solid ground.

Someone grabs his left arm, and another person grabs his right, and he is hauled to his feet. He takes three stumbling steps, supported by people he can’t see through the rain; or maybe he can’t see through memory. But someone else shoves his gun into his hands, and with that solid object in his grip he can focus on moving again.

He’s surrounded now, and the others have slowed to match his pace. He only notices this vaguely; he’s lost in a sea that’s not there, floundering, sinking—

Lightning flashes and he _sees_ it, burned into his eyes he _sees_ it all again, so sharp, so clear—

“I want to go home,” he whispers.

But a few blinks and it fades, just enough that he can see the others and the shape of the manor, dark and brooding and dotted with light like square stars. Follow the path. Do not fall down. Warmth is ahead. He doesn’t even care about wet; his entire existence is wet now. He only wants warmth.

The others abruptly speed up, leaving him behind again. He doesn’t care. He has a goal. Slowly, his legs regain their strength, and he runs just fast enough that he is not totally disgraced when he reaches the finish point.

Merlin is looking at them all knowingly. Now that Eggsy has stopped, trembling all over, he sees all kinds of strange emotions on everyone’s faces, and no one will look at him. Roxy does, though; and she grins at Eggsy. He manages a weak, trembling smile of his own.

“Get inside and dry off,” Merlin orders them all. “Except you, Eggsy. I need to talk to you.”


	6. Eye

Eggsy keeps his eyes away from the windows—until Merlin stands right in front of one, and Eggsy is treated to a view of trees whipping in the wind and rain battering the window over his teacher’s shoulder. He’s still trembling; the view makes him shudder a little.

“Arthur has found out about that time you broke Charlie’s nose,” Merlin begins casually, “And he wants you punished.”

“Sir?” He really wishes Merlin would move away from the window.

“Arthur happens to be my boss, and thus, I am left to find a way to punish you that won’t leave you a shivering wreck for three days.” Merlin eyes Eggsy carefully, then suggests, “How do you feel about camping out in the storm until it blows over?”

Eggsy’s already pale face pales even more, and he can’t fight an expression of horror. “I’d rather not,” he answers weakly, knowing that it doesn’t matter what he wants. Merlin is in charge. Merlin will decide what happens to him.

Merlin himself nods. “Pack up,” he orders Eggsy curtly. “You’re spending the night outside.”

~~~\0/~~~

He knows damn well that the tent is completely waterproof, but he still checks every seam constantly. He makes sure the flap is closed completely. He pats around the perimeter to make sure there’s no leaking coming in from the bottom. He wishes he had the courage to check that he nailed the ropes in properly.

He knows he has. Merlin had been generous enough to let him take a tent and go camp under a stand of trees, right during a break in the rain. Eggsy had taken his time setting up the tent, because his hands had been shaking and he’d been casting terrified glances at the pregnant clouds the entire time. Before he’d finished, the rain had come pissing down again, and he’d burst into tears. This wasn’t punishment, this was torture. But that was exactly the point. And Eggsy had better get used to it.

He checks the seams again. The ground should be hard, but even under the trees, it’s churned and muddy. It makes him loath to lie down. But lie down he must, if he wants to sleep.

So finally, he crawls into his sleeping bag, shuddering at the way the ground squishes beneath the floor of the tent, and closes his eyes.

Only to have them pop open again as thunder rolls, far too close for comfort. Will the storm ever die completely? It’s a horrible thought; that the storm will last forever and ever and ever. But it must stop soon. It must.

He can’t sleep. He sits up, still cocooned in his sleeping bag, and stares at the wall. It ripples in the wind. He feels sick. Why is he doing this? Why doesn’t he just sneak back and curl up in his warm bed with J.B. to keep him safe? Because Merlin will know, and he’ll do worse, and Eggsy doesn’t want that at all.

He sits in the cold dark, shivering, waiting for dawn and knowing it will never come.

…But it does come.

Eggsy is curled up on his side, his hands over his ears, when he realizes that the inside of his tent is lightening. He sits bolt upright, scrambles free of his sleeping bag, and rips open the tent flap.

False dawn. Grey and thin, but still, there is light. And the clouds—the clouds are mere shreds. The storm has moved on.

Eggsy sits back on his heels and weeps for a good ten minutes. Then he turns on his knees and starts packing up. He doesn’t even think about hunger until he spots the rations that Merlin had so generously provided; and then he is ravenous. He opens the pack and falls on it, not caring what it is, although he detects teriyaki on the beef jerky. He eats everything.

And then his stomach convulses, jolts, revolts; he clamps his hand over his mouth, plugs his nose, and holds it in with an iron will. He will _not_ vomit it all up again. He will _not_ be tricked by his own body. He has eaten the equivalent of two meals and he will keep those meals down, damn it.

It takes a while to remind his stomach who’s boss, but eventually it obeys him, and relaxes. He continues packing.

By the time he has his tent down, the sun is truly starting to rise. He treks back to the manor feeling… relieved. And proud. He survived. He didn’t sleep and he was terrified the whole time, but he survived. That is something to be proud of.

Merlin meets him at the door. Eggsy manages a salute. He will not blame Merlin. He was only doing his job.

“So you survived,” Merlin states.

“Yessir,” Eggsy croaks.

“Good. Get inside and drop that all off. Morning run is at five-thirty.”

“Yessir.”

And that’s it. That’s Eggsy’s punishment over with. He’d smile, if he had any smiles left in him. Instead he salutes again and walks back into the manor.

No one else is awake when he steps into the barracks, but after two steps he sees the little tan-and-black roll on his pillow start up. He strides quickly and quietly over to his bed and bends to greet J.B. properly, whispering hellos and praises as J.B. bounces and licks his hands furiously, as if saying “Where were you! I missed you! You’re my human, stop going place without me!”

Eggsy dredges up a smile for him. What a good doggy.

“Eggsy?” Roxy mumbles groggily. “’Zat you?”

“Yeah,” he whispers back.

“Where were you?”

“Punishment.”

That wakes her up. Roxy props herself up on her elbow and stares at him, noting the muddy boots, the wet and wrinkled uniform, the exhausted face. “You were outside all night,” she states flatly, and quietly.

“Yeah. But the storm cleared up ‘round dawn, so it’s okay.”

“What was it for?”

“Merlin’s boss found out I—“

“An’ where the hell have _you_ been?” Charlie demands blearily from across the room.

Eggsy turns and glares at him. “Why the fuck do _you_ care?” he snaps.

“If you were out and getting into trouble, it’ll bounce back on us,” Charlie retorts, sitting up with an effort. Eggsy can see his scowl through the dark of the room; not so dark compared to night in a storm.

“Not this time,” he replies firmly. Then he sets about getting ready for the day, because there isn’t enough time to sleep. He is very quiet about it; so no one but Charlie and Roxy are awake to see him stumble, run to the toilets, and stand over one, hands clenched over mouth and nose, heaving and fighting to keep from being sick. No one but them is awake to see him lose, falling to his knees and retching, until nothing comes up but bile. No one but them to hear him give one little angry growl, before he flushes the toilet, and just sits there, staring tiredly at nothing.

The rustling of fabric, the creak of someone getting out of bed. Eggsy expects Roxy; but no, the rhythm of the footsteps is wrong, and then Charlie is standing beside him, arms crossed, expression hard and unreadable.

“I really pity you,” he says, tone absolutely flat.

“I know,” Eggsy answers without looking at him. “And I pity you, too. But neither of us give a shit what the other thinks, so why the fuck should it matter?” He tries to get up, pitches sideways—but Charlie grabs his arm and hauls him to his feet, and doesn’t let go when Eggsy has found his footing. In fact, his hold is very tight; almost bruising. “Let go of me.”

“Where were you?” Charlie demands.

“Let _go_ of me,” Eggsy repeats, a little louder.

“Not til you tell me where you were.”

“Charlie, just let go of him,” Roxy snaps. She is standing now, and she looks ready to fight an army of Charlies. “It’s none of our business where he was.”

Charlie stares at her, and Eggsy takes the opportunity to wrench free and stomp around the half-wall in the other direction. His arm hurts like fuck, but he’s not going to show it.

Merlin suddenly walks through the door, crying, “Rise and shine, candidates, it’s time for your morning run! Ah, Roxy, Eggsy, Charlie, good to see you’re awake already. Come on, up ye get!”

Within five minutes, all the candidates are kitted up and ready for their run. Now that it isn’t raining, they can take their dogs out with them. Eggsy is glad. It will give him an excuse to lag, that his pup is small and therefore slower. Although… _why_ hadn’t Merlin made them take the pups outside with them? Not that Eggsy isn’t happy that he hadn’t fallen on top of J.B., or that J.B. never had a chance to catch a chill; but why is Merlin so nice to the puppies? Huh. A thought for another time, perhaps.

~~~\0/~~~

_The sub isn’t supposed to be this large._

_He wanders corridors too long and too twisty. For the first time, he pays attention to the rubbish and wreckage blocking the doors; it’s all the kind of stuff that would wash up on the beach after a terrible storm. Branches, plastic things, pieces of metal, planks of wood, even ropes and bits of fabric that might be sails. How it all got inside the sub, he’ll never know._

_He cuts his fingers scrambling over a tangle of metal and wood; he stares at them, not because they hurt, but because he has a little finger._

_A jolt. The sub rocks; Eggsy slams sideways into the wall, as the ceiling opens and water comes flooding in—_

He jerks awake and sits bolt upright, gasping, wet and cold, cold, cold all the way through—

No, he’s in bed, safe in bed, and they’re all laughing at him.

He leaps out of bed and lunges, but Roxy is in his way, holding him back. “It’s not worth it, Eggsy,” she says, speaking fast, “It really isn’t.”

“Aww, what’s wrong, mate? Can’t take a joke?” Charlie jeers, sneering as Eggsy fights to get past Roxy and land a fist in Charlie’s eye.

“Seriously, you’ll be punished again,” Roxy urges, looking very, very worried. Indeed, even Charlie’s cronies are looking uncertain. Charlie himself doesn’t seem affected.

“Maybe I don’t give a _fuck_ about punishment,” Eggsy snarls, and Charlie’s sneer falters.

But it’s back as Charlie takes a step forward in a threatening manner and says, “Come on, then, pleb.”

“Charlie, fuck off!” Roxy snaps viciously, turning sharply, one hand still braced on Eggsy’s chest to keep him in place. Charlie blinks, wavers, smirks, and walks away, followed by his lackeys.

“Go on, walk away, dickhead,” Eggsy shoots at his back. But J.B.’s yips are breaking through the bloodlust; the puppy doesn’t like being cold and wet. Eggsy picks him up, trying to soothe him—or maybe he’s trying to soothe himself.

It has been a week since his punishment. There have been a few light sprinkles, but no all-out thunder storms. And anyway, they’ve already done testing in the pool; Eggsy had passed that because the panic had given way to a glassy-eyed calm that allowed him to obey Merlin’s instructions, even as the inside of his head milled and shrieked and begged him to get out of the pool. Merlin had lamented aloud that there was no lake to send them out on, and they couldn’t go out to the sea; Eggsy’s calm had broken then, and he had to sit down and hold his medal, rubbing the scar over his ear.

But that was days ago. Eggsy is better now. Or, he _was_ better. Why would Charlie  & Co. _do_ that? It’s not like Merlin has favored him since Archie stole his medicine.

Which, sadly, has been taken away. All except the pain pills.

Eggsy knows why this is. He cannot be dependent on drugs. It’s too dangerous. But he still complained about it to Delphine, now that he can’t see Dr. Wallace as often anymore.

It’s too late to go back to sleep, too early to actually do anything. Roxy helps Eggsy strip his soaked bedding and dump it on the floor, kicking it under the bed for safekeeping. The mattress is too wet to lie down again. He sits on the foot of his bed, cross-legged and with his back to Charlie, staring at the wall, J.B. lying in his lap. Eggsy explores the scar above his ear with his three fingers.

He can’t remember what gave him the scar. It might have been one of the jagged pieces of metal he ran into when trying to swim to the surface. There had been a lot of jagged metal, he remembers that well enough; and when his hand had caught in a crack, it was his pinkie that took the blow. And Sarah had run afoul of a cutting edge too…

The sub wasn’t supposed to be that large. And the water hadn’t exploded at him like that. He’d had enough warning to grab an oxygen tank, but no time to put it on. Four dead. No one knew how the other three had died; they’d just disappeared. And when he’d lost Sarah—

He’s begun to shake again. Why did Charlie have to do that?

He knows why. Because Eggsy is gaining on him. Because Eggsy is working through his fear. Because Eggsy took a shower and didn’t have to go away and cry. Because now Charlie has _two_ opponents—and he knows the new one’s weaknesses.

Eggsy strokes J.B. and holds tight to his medal.

Everyone wakes at five o’clock on the dot. By the time Merlin arrives for inspection at five-twenty, everyone is ready. He nods to see it. He’s doing a lot more approving nods these days.

The morning run is uneventful, as is breakfast, which Eggsy refuses, as usual. He drinks lots of tea, though. His bladder is getting quite a workout these days. He glances along the table and counts the candidates. Six. Shouldn’t they have lost another by now? Or were they really all passing the requirements?

Merlin had added a new class: gymnastics. Eggsy, though rusty, is doing extremely well. Merlin has even put him to applying his bendiness to things like sidling down halls riddled with lasers; and once Eggsy let slip he did free running, Merlin immediately put him under the guidance of the man who had trained the puppies, to learn more intensive parkour.

The man gave his name as Bart, and he is as relentless as Merlin. There is a miniature jungle of concrete and metal bars in the—well, it can only be described as a small hangar, right next to the gymnastics class. Eggsy realized quickly that he had missed this, the exhilaration, the quick thinking, the immediate twists, the pounding of his heart til it feels like it will burst. Every move made him feel stronger, more sure; and Bart never let him get a big head about it.

“Adequate,” Bart sniffs today, as Eggsy stands limp and panting before him. “Go cool down with the others, then come straight back here and try again. Remember, you want the quickest route, not the showiest.”

“Yessir,” Eggsy gasps, saluting as smartly as he can. He can’t explain that he’d done “showy” moves so as to work off some more fear; that would be an excuse, and excuses are not tolerated.

So he trots out the door, down a bit of hall, and reenters the gym, feeling… good. Not content, and definitely not happy; but good. He can breathe and think, now that he’s cleared his head.

“Ah, Eggsy, there you are,” Merlin greets him. Merlin is standing by the mats, as the five other candidates stretch, slowly. “Join in.”

Eggsy does so, and ignores the disgruntled glares sent his way. They’re always disgruntled. None of them like that he gets “special treatment”. Really, it’s only because he’d show them up painfully if he were stuck in baby classes with them. They wouldn’t last a day doing the training Eggsy’s working on.

But he has never said that, and he never will.

He eats lunch because he needs the energy that food will give him. He’s lost even more weight since he came here; he’s now mostly muscle, but his angles are still sharp and bony. Roxy has begun to look at him worriedly whenever she sees him without his shirt. He doesn’t know why. So what if his uniforms are hanging looser than they had a few months ago? It’s barely perceptible. And it’s not like—

Hugo suddenly shoves the remains of his food at Eggsy. “I’m not hungry,” he says decidedly.

Eggsy stares at him blankly, utterly confused.

Rufus and Digby look at each other, then push their own plates towards Eggsy. Roxy actually leans over and scrapes her food onto Eggsy’s plate.

“I don’t—“ Eggsy starts, finally understanding what they’re doing, and becoming very distressed about it. “I don’t need more!”

“Eat it,” Roxy commands, sounding scarily like Merlin. “You’re starving and you know it.”

“I’m not!”

“No, they’re right,” Merlin says from the doorway, startling them all. He fixes Eggsy with a hard stare and continues sternly, “This refusing to eat is getting ridiculous. You will eat what is given, and you will eat dinner tonight, and breakfast tomorrow, and so on.”

“But I’m not hungry,” Eggsy protests weakly. His stomach is already churning queasily.

“Do it anyway. Put some more meat on those bones.”

So, under the hostile gazes of four and stern stares of two, Eggsy forces down every scrap. This is not the right way to feed him up. He knows that. But if it will make them leave him alone, he will do it.

Only when he is done and feels like he’s going to vomit does Merlin nod and tell them all, “Report to the testing room. I have to take care of something first.”

The candidates all nod and stand. It does not escape Eggsy’s notice that Charlie is glaring at his cronies with an anger as great as that which he often directs at Eggsy. Eggsy doesn’t blame him. He’d be furious too if his friends did something nice for the void of their own free will.

Do they even remember him? He’s been avoiding that thought, but it comes hard and fast as his over-full stomach creaks. Does _anyone_ remember him? Does mum wonder where he is? Is the void glad he’s gone? How big has Daisy got? He wishes he had the courage to ask Merlin to let him visit them.

The candidates file into the testing room and take their usual seats. Eggsy turns a little in his seat and J.B. jumps into his lap. Eggsy wraps his arms around the puppy and is comforted. No matter what happens, he still has a doggy to be his stalwart companion, his dearest friend. He can survive being separated from his family and friends as long as he has J.B. by his side.

It’s pathetic. It’s ridiculous. But it’s true. As long as he has something to love, he’ll be okay.

Merlin strides through the door and scans them all almost automatically. He raises an eyebrow at Eggsy; the younger man immediately puts J.B. down on the floor, where the pug sits on Eggsy’s foot and sulks.

The tests Merlin passes out are all personalized still, and Eggsy is proud of the progress he has made. He’s improved and learned so much in such a short period of time. Mum would be proud, too.

He _knows_ he gets every question right. Maybe it takes him a little longer, but he does it. He turns in the test with a glow of pride—and then he asks quietly, “May I go to the bathroom, sir? I think I’m gonna puke.”

Merlin’s eyebrows rise, but he nods. Eggsy barely makes it before his overstuffed stomach rejects its contents.

Definitely the wrong way to feed him up.

~~~\0/~~~

“Why did you do that?!”

Hugo looks uncomfortable. “He’s getting too skinny,” he protests. “It reminds me of my little brother. I can’t just let someone starve themself.”

Charlie is still furious. “He’s skinny because he’s lean! You don’t have to spoil him like a pet!” he snarls, then shuts up, because Eggsy has returned from his weekly meeting with Delphine. Eggsy is looking unusually thoughtful, and definitely depressed. He ignores everyone and sits on his bed, grabbing a knotted sock and beginning to play tug-of-war with his dog. Charlie glares at him, thinking about how everything was his fault.

Hugo thinks that he feels bad for Eggsy. He can’t stand seeing the bones stand out so sharply in anyone’s face. Not after his brother.

Digby hates Eggsy, but he secretly agrees with Hugo. Eggsy may be mental, but it’s disturbing to watch him falter. In his own way, he demands as much respect as Charlie.

Rufus is of the same mind as Digby, though it was his idea to dump that bucket of water on Eggsy. The wild look on Eggsy’s face…

Roxy knows what the boys are thinking. She doesn’t know Eggsy’s mind, though. He’s always so closed, except when he’s afraid. Then there is only fear. It makes her afraid for him. He is her only human ally. She can’t lose another person, not so soon. Please, not this soon.

~~~\0/~~~

Eggsy eats dinner because everyone is watching. He does feel a little better after that. He keeps up more easily during their evening practice, and he sleeps a little better. He’s still wracked with nightmares, but at least his stomach does not hurt him during the night.

Time slips away from him again. He measures it in pain pills and meals; three a day each. He begins to fill out again. He has a little more energy for running, for parkour, for studying and the miscellany Merlin is so fond of. But he knows it’s going to take a long, long time to get to where he was a year ago.

And then, one day, Merlin comes to him at dinner and says, “Galahad’s awake and he’s commanded your presence.”

Eggsy immediately shoves his plate away and stands, forgetting that he’d promised to finish his food no matter the interruption. Harry is much more important than food.

He does not run to the medical bay. He walks swiftly, with J.B. trotting beside him. Eggsy takes a moment to remove the leash from his belt and clip it to J.B.’s collar. The pug gives him an exasperated look—“You really think I can’t heel?”—but doesn’t object. Eggsy pats his head in apology and continues walking.

The lobby of the medical bay is empty. He feels uncomfortable walking through here unchallenged, but Harry called for him, so it must be alright. So Eggsy walks through the door to the wing where Harry was last seen, and keeps his chin up.

He takes a deep, bracing breath outside the door, then opens it and steps in carefully.

“Ever heard of knocking?” Harry asks calmly without turning around.

“Only when I’m casing a place to rob,” Eggsy replies impertinently, and wonders at himself. “Merlin said you wanted to see me?”

“Yes.” Now Harry turns, hands in his robe’s pockets. He looks… not vulnerable, but less like he’s kitted up in full steel armor. And his face is still expressionless—except now there is a tinge of pity. Eggsy hides his anger. “I want to know how you’re doing.”

Eggsy considers several sarcastic, caustic, or angry replies; instead he dredges up a sliver of a smile and says quietly, “I’m not so scared of the rain anymore.”

Harry nods, the pity replaced by satisfaction and… pride? “That is good. Are you taking your medicine regularly?” he asks calmly.

“Yeah,” Eggsy answers slowly, feeling slightly suspicious. “How did you know I have meds?”

“I asked,” Harry replies, as if this is the most commonplace thing in the world. Then he looks Eggsy over more closely, and frowns. “You look thinner,” he states, “Is Merlin not feeding you properly?”

“I… haven’t been eating much,” Eggsy confesses. “Haven’t been hungry.”

“I thought your medication increased appetite.”

Eggsy stares at him blankly, then realizes what he means. “Oh. No, I’m not taking those anymore. I was on ‘em for a while, but they stopped paying for them. Now I’m just on pain medication.”

Harry’s expression changes subtly, though Eggsy can’t tell how. “Pain medication.”

“Yeah. It was amazing. I didn’t even know it hurt til I started taking them.” And now he can’t imagine _not_ taking them. He’s not addicted; he just loves them immensely. Maybe that shows on his face, because Harry frowns again, deeper this time.

“Eggsy…”

“Are you alright now?” Eggsy interrupts, feeling that he would not like what Harry says.

A pause just long enough to convey Harry’s displeasure in Eggsy’s rudeness. “Yes,” Harry answers at last. “I am fine. I… bounce back fast. Are you sure you’re—“

A knock at the door. Eggsy turns away from Harry, both irritated and grateful. Harry makes a tiny noise of annoyance. But then the door opens, and Merlin steps into the room.

“Ah, Eggsy,” he says, vaguely disapproving. “I need to have a private conversation, you’re dismissed.”

“Nonsense,” Harry says suddenly. “Let him observe. He may learn a thing or two.”

Merlin pauses, and looks between Harry and Eggsy. “…As you wish,” he murmurs, and taps his clipboard in a certain sequence. Only now does Eggsy realize there’s a huge television screen inset in the wall, holding the photos of all six remaining candidates. Then it swipes suddenly; Eggsy glances at Merlin’s clipboard, startled, and sees that it’s actually a tablet. Well then. That explains a few things.

And then there’s footage playing, first person, with Harry’s voice speaking; and some other bloke who looks to be in terrible agony. Why would that be? Harry’s just twisting his—

“FUCKIN’ hell!” Eggsy blurts, as the poor bloke’s head unexpectedly explodes. The footage cuts out there. “That’s just rank, Harry!”

“Wasn’t me,” Harry replies calmly.

“Actually the explosion was caused by an implant in his neck,” Merlin explains, zooming in on the tablet and thus the screen. “Here, underneath the scar.”

“Did my hardware pick up the signal that triggered it?”

“Fortunately yes. Unfortunately, the IP address I traced it back to is registered to the Valentine Corporation.” Another tap on the clipboard and a whole dossier on Richmond Valentine, billionaire philanthropist tech genius, appears on the screen.

“That’s not much of a lead,” Harry mutters, “He has millions of employees worldwide.”

“That Richmond Valentine is a genius,” Eggsy comments, surprising himself as well as the others. He turns to look, and sees them both staring at him. “Did you not… see his announcement today?” Eggsy asks, surprised. He’s so used to Merlin knowing everything—and the only reason Eggsy knows is because someone left the television in the barracks on over lunch, and when Eggsy had gone to collect his books, he’d been captivated by the brilliance of Valentine’s plan.

“No,” Merlin answers Eggsy’s question.

Eggsy feels like grinning. He knows something they don’t! But that’s bad form, and he remembers the storm punishment. So he holds out his hand for the clipboard. Slowly, and with great reluctance, Merlin hands it over. Eggsy takes a moment to admire it, then locates the search bar and types in “valentine free communications network”. There are over five thousand results, but the first one is the video. Eggsy taps it, and it plays on screen.

He’s already seen it, but again, he is impressed. Even if it doesn’t actually work in practice—and it’s almost a guarantee that it will—the promise is enough that every single person in Britain with a phone or computer (or both if the supply is big enough) will have one in around two days. Amazing, absolutely amazing.

When the video is done, Merlin yanks the clipboard back—and then Harry takes it from him, leaving Merlin to cross his arms in exasperation, perhaps praying for patience. Eggsy suppresses a smirk.

“Valentine’s assistant has the same implant scar,” Harry notes as he zooms in on the video. Amazing that it doesn’t become pixelated. “I think Mr. Valentine and I should have a tête-à-tête.”

Eggsy blinks, then whips around and blurts, “You only just woke up!”

“That doesn’t matter,” Merlin answers, taking the clipboard/tablet back from Harry and tapping a few more buttons. “He’s holding a gala dinner next week. I’ll get you an invitation. You have to be careful, though; since you’ve been out, hundreds of v.i.p.’s have gone missing, no ransom notes, nothing, exactly like Professor Arnold.”

“Then I suggest you make my alias someone worth kidnapping,” Harry replies lightly.

Eggsy feels awkward and even more left out than he ever had with the other candidates. For a moment he’d felt equal, and now he has no clue what they’re talking about, except that it means Harry has only a week to fully recover. One of the units in their classes on human anatomy had been about medical conditions and recovery; and Eggsy vaguely remembers doing a project on comas and sleep conditions. Most people, after months of being out cold, couldn’t even stand for very long; so how could Harry possibly be ready for anything?

J.B. whines. It’s time for bed, why is his human still standing around like this? Eggsy crouches and scritches his ears, murmuring soothingly.

Merlin clears his throat. Eggsy rises instantly.

“You have thirty seconds,” Merlin warns him, and leaves the room.

Eggsy immediately turns to Harry and states flatly, “You’re not gonna be ready by then.”

“You’d be surprised,” Harry replies dryly. He reaches out like he’s going to stroke Eggsy’s cheek—and instead clasps him on the shoulder warmly. “You worry about you. _I_ will be absolutely fine. Now show them what an Unwin can do.”

Eggsy straightens, puts his shoulders back, takes a breath—and steps forward and hugs Harry, hard, before scooping up J.B. and fleeing the room.


End file.
